


for your eyes only (i show you my heart)

by avonleasangel



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bellamy realizes he wants to give her one, Clarke really needs a hug, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Slow Burn Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-31
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:41:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 41,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23406199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avonleasangel/pseuds/avonleasangel
Summary: With her guard down, Clarke’s defenseless, which is why she hates Bellamy Blake because he’s a Gryffindor and stubborn as hell, which means he sees right through whatever mask she puts on.Much to Bellamy’s disbelief, the blonde-haired, pureblood Slytherin princess had a heart, and a really fucking big one at that.(set during the Second Wizarding War)
Relationships: Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin, Octavia Blake/Lincoln
Comments: 80
Kudos: 600





	1. our choices show what we truly are

**Author's Note:**

> with all this corona stuff going on, i’ve been rewatching harry potter which finally gave me the inspiration to write this.
> 
> if you haven’t read harry potter, you’ll be okay, i think i did a pretty good job of explaining the magic parts.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> here are links to the theme boards i made for this story 
> 
> bellamy -https://avonleasangel.tumblr.com/post/636822117306056704
> 
> clarke - https://avonleasangel.tumblr.com/post/636822106781466624
> 
> hogwarts -https://avonleasangel.tumblr.com/post/636822095330934784

Similar to how the sun always rose in the east and set in the west everyday, from the day he had met her, Bellamy Blake had always hated Clarke Griffin.

Bellamy’s favorite place to study in the library was the tables that were the closest to the Restricted Section because they were far enough away from main shelves and tables, where the majority of students congregated, but weren’t surrounded by the dusty aromas that wafted from the older textbooks. Plus, it got the most light, which made his studying sessions for the upcoming exams much more bearable.

His charms class had gone long, unfortunately, which had allowed a certain blonde haired Slytherin to commandeer the table. Bellamy felt his skin bristle at the sight of her.

“What do you think you’re doing, Griffin?” He said through clenched teeth.

She didn’t look up, he knew she had heard him, but her attention remained on the parchment in front of her.

“Griffin, you’re at my table.” He hissed.

Her response was reticent, “You don’t own the table, Blake.” Her eyes didn't stray away from the problem she was working through.

Bellamy’s fingers twitched, itching to grab his wand from his robes. “C’mon, Griffin, I’m the only one who studies here during fifth hour. It’s my table.”

This time she looked up, her piercing blue eyes met his. “No it’s not, but it’s a big table,” she motioned to the other end of the table, which, apart from a few miscellaneous assignments, was empty, “Carpe Retractum.” Ropes of gold light materialized and wrapped themselves around the papers, pulling them gently toward where she was sitting.

He fought to keep his expression pissed and neutral. It wasn’t a difficult spell, he had used it countless times himself but never without a wand. He tried to shove the anger that grew at that thought, that Griffin could do something he couldn’t.

But he wasn’t about to give up the table entirely, so he bit his lip and took the chair that was farthest from her.

Bellamy found Herbology to be particularly boring, his worst subject, and that was very difficult to memorize healing charms and their connections to various plants that had similar abilities. He was only half way down the first page of his reading when a stream of classical music broke his focus.

He glared at his table partner until she turned to look at him. “What are you doing?” He asked.

“The music is a simple variation of the Muffliato charm, which---”

“Blocks one from hearing surrounding conversations, I know that, Griffin, I’m not an idiot.”

“My dad taught it to me---” She tried to continue.

“I get it, okay, your dad, your family by extension, is perfect. You have plenty of time trade spells, between Death Eater meetings that is.” What he said wasn't a lie, maybe a slight exertion of the truth. The Griffin family was notorious for their connections to the Dark Lord, and his supporters. Every student at Hogwarts knew that the Griffins were the first to run back to Voldermort’s side after he had come back during the Triwizard Cup in fourth year.

Potter himself had even revealed in sparing conversations that Abby Griffin had apparitated into her spot within the circle, standing between the parents of Krabb and Goyle.

* * *

* * *

Clarke’s grip tightened around her quill. “Talk about my mother all you want but if I hear my dad’s name come out of your mouth again, Blake, I promise that you’ll wake up in the infirmary without a clue as to how you got there.”

“Glad to know the rumors are true, snakes do resort to violence when they feel threatened.”

Her wand was in her bag, but for the hex that she was thinking of, she didn’t need it. Clarke had been practicing her wandless magic over the summer. Since her mom had confiscated her wand the second week she had been home, she didn’t have very many options; especially if she stood a chance at becoming an Auror, a profession that relied on one's fluent, articulated wand techinques.

“Whatever, the table is yours.” She said as she boxed the answer to the final problem she had been working on. Gathering her materials into her bag, Clarke pushed in her chair and started towards the door but not before catching the satisfied smirk on her rival’s lips.

“Illegibilus.” She whispered under her breath, a smirk of her own formed as she heard Blake’s frustrated groan---there was a countercurse for it but she knew that he didn’t know it.

* * *

* * *

Bellamy was fuming by the time he got to the Great Hall for dinner. “Raven, I need the countercurse for Illegibilus.” He had spent the better part of an hour trying all the charms he knew to reverse but had been unsuccessful, which meant that he hadn’t been able to finish his Herbology homework because, thanks to Griffin, his textbook was no longer made up of coherent sentences.

With a wave of her wand, reversed the hex and went back to eating, a small smile playing on her lips. Bellamy scoffed and took a seat next to her, “If you have something to say, Raven, out with it.”

“I don’t get why you hate her so much, Bell, she’s not that bad.”

Bellamy choked on his spaghetti. “Since when are you all buddy-buddy with the princess?”

“Trust me, we’re not, but Slughorn paired us up in potions last week when you were out with the flu.”

“Which was her doing!”

Raven laughed, “Yeah, after you cursed her to make all her hair fall out. She was bald for four days, Bellamy.”

He shrugged and went back to his food but he couldn’t help that his eyes drifted over to the Slytherin table, where she was sitting next to John Murphy. The two were several seats away from the rest of their housemates and hunched over a spell book and their plates were empty. For a brief moment, he wondered what they could possibly be studying. Whenever he saw them together, that same green spellbook was between them.

Murphy looked up from the book and took notice of Bellamy’s lingering gaze. He nudged Griffin and whispered something in her ear, which made Clarke laugh and shove him back. From his perspective, it looked like they were dating, if they were, Bellamy wouldn’t be surprised, the princess of the snakes and the cockroach, they would make a good pair.

His attention was brought back to his own table when Raven brought up tomorrow’s Quidditch match. Gryffindor was scheduled to play Slytherin for the fourth match of the year. It was going to be a good game, both houses were currently undefeated, each having beaten Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff in their first two match ups.

Jasper and Monty took turns rambling on about various strategies they could use to neutralize Slytherin’s best players, Griffin and Murphy, who were the best chasers that Slytherin had seen in years.

“Relax, Jasper, they won’t be getting any shots off, not if I have anything to say about it.” Bellamy said firmly. There was no way he was going to let Gryffindor lose to some no good snakes, especially with the rising tensions in the wizarding world.

Slytherin alumni were growing more powerful in the ministry, realigning themselves with Voldermort. If Slytherin won, they would be a shoe-in to win the Quidditch cup, and the last thing anyone in the resistance needed was the ego-boost that those self-righteous pricks would get from winning.

“I dunno, Bellamy, I heard that Clarke just traded her 2001 in for the Firebolt Supreme, courtesy of Randolph Spudmore himself.”

“Bloody hell,” Raven swore, “how’d she get one of those? They’ve only been released to professional players.”

“What do you think?” Jasper deadpanned, “she’s a fucking Griffin, they’re pureblood royalty and have fucking connections to everything.”

The anger was back and hotter than ever, Bellamy felt it course through his veins. “Meet in the common room after last period. I’ll talk to Potter and see what he thinks before then.”

* * *

* * *

At first, Clarke didn’t know what to make of John Murphy but, Merlin, she had been running low in the friends department ever since she got sorted into Slytherin. Bellamy Blake’s snap assumptions about her house were true, a majority of her classmates blindly followed their parents' beliefs without question. She even knew that a handful of them had gone as far to get the Dark Mark etched into their forearm over the summer.

Murphy had first inserted himself into her life after Wells had transferred to Durmstrang after third year. She wouldn’t lie, she had been wallowing in self pity during second hour potions, the first day back after Christmas break, when he had taken the seat next to her. “You got a shitty home life, Griffin.”

Clarke had been stunned to silence, she could have sworn that her healing charms had covered up her broken nose but she didn’t see the point in lying. “Is it that obvious?”

Murphy’s smile was lopsided when he winked, “Nah, but I’ve messed up my fair share of Episkey charms.”

Over the course of the next few weeks, Murphy and Clarke took turns sh aring secrets. She had learned that he had practically raised himself since his parents were often too high to do it themselves. His beatings, similar to hers, had been a form of blackmail---a warning that if he had told anyone of the true nature of things at home, things would get much worse. She still wasn’t sure why she had told him her side of things, she blamed the firewhiskey that he had snuck in from the kitchens.

Her dad worked in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement at the Ministry and his perspectives on the various edicts that were proposed were far more progressive than most other purebloods. He believed that Muggle-borns shouldn’t be persecuted rather that their power should be protected and cultivated similar to how purebloods were, and resources should be provided to jump start their experiences with magic.

That way they wouldn’t be at as much od a disadvantage when they arrived at Hogwarts for their first year. Clarke had agreed, having witnessed the magic of some fantastic Muggle-born witches and wizards at Hogwarts. She marveled at the fact that they were at the same, if not higher level, as their pureblood classmates, despite the disadvantages they had to overcome.

Her father had instructed her to talk to Dumbledore about it and had sent drafts of the proposal via owl throughout her third year. The headmaster had agreed that the proposal had to be kept a secret, if word got out that a Slytherin alumni had crafted such a thing, Clarke and her father would have the largest of targets on their backs.

Everything had been going smoothly until her fourth year. Jake Griffin had been quietly promoting the proposal throughout the smaller departments of the Ministry, if he got a majority of them on side, the minister would have no choice but to pass it. He had done just that but Fudge had deliberately gone against the democratic principles of the Ministry and sent out to destroy all the copies of the proposal.

The Dark Lord’s old follower’s remained in the Ministry’s various departments and had taken a rather violent approach of expressing their opinion about her father and his seemingly radical ideas. Clarke had found out on Christmas Eve that her father had died while she had been at school, in a muggle car accident of all things. Abby had insisted that she had waited to tell Clarke because she hadn’t wanted the impending grief to affect her exams.

But at fourteen, Clarke had already developed an articulated ability to detect when her mother was lying.

She had steeled herself throughout that break, keeping conversations with her mother to a minimum and talking to Wells through the fireplace in her room almost every night. He said this was the very reason his father had sent him to Drumstrang, Jaha didn’t want his son to get caught up in the turmoil that would have ensued if Clarke’s father had been caught.

Throughout her time at home, Clarke heard bits and pieces of her mother’s conversations with the other Ministry officials and St. Mungo healers, details that heavily contrasted the supposed truth that she had been told.

After immense research, Murphy had been the one to perform the countercurse to alleviate Clarke of the false memory charm that her mother had casted upon her. She had then been able to piece together the actuality of what happened, her mother had discovered one of the copies of her father’s proposal and had been the one to alert Fudge of Jake Griffin’s betrayal of the Slytherin house and its pureblood ideologies.

She also remembered how she had come to have three bruised ribs and a busted lip, Byrne, a particularly ruthless Death Eater had been tasked with sending a threat to Jake Griffin’s daughter as someone who posed a threat to the power dynamic that had benefited the purebloods ever since the magical community had been founded centuries ago.

So two years later, as strange as it sounds, Clarke would call Murphy her best friend. She supposed she didn’t really have a choice if she wanted him to continue to fix the injuries she sustained at home. For whatever reason, his Episkey charm was still better than hers.

Clarke owed Murphy more than he knew himself, without him others may have found out how her father really died, and the role that her mother played in it. She would be even more despised by the Gryffindors and hated by the Slytherins. She had to stay alive long enough to get this damn proposal passed, she wouldn’t let her dad’s death be in vain.

Plus, she didn't know what she would do if Bellamy Blake found out the truth. He would never let her hear the end of it. Even just imagining it, Clarke could hear his annoyingly deep voice mock her, “I bet you were secretly praying on his downfall, princess. How else would your father have trusted you with such a proposal.”

She wanted nothing more than to knock Gryffindor out of the contention for the Quidditch cup, Bellamy Blake ego’s definitely did not need any more inflating.

* * *

* * *

Hovering twenty feet above the ground, Bellamy waited for Madam Hooch’s whistles. Across the pitch, the princess sat atop her broom, relaxed, while tightening her gloves. His brows furrowed when he noticed that her broom was the same firebolt she had been using ever since fourth year.

She had been the second student at Hogwarts to get one (after Potter of course).

Bellamy swore under his breath. All the scenarios he had ran through last night had been dependent on the fact that Griffin would be riding a Firebolt supreme. The hours of research and theorizing that had kept him up all night were going to be of no help during this match.

He had been so caught up in his fury that he missed the pass that Raven had thrown his way, apparently Madam Hooch had started the game, The quaffle hit his shoulder and fell about five feet before landing in Griffin’s outstretched hands.

Fuck.

Murphy quickly followed, overlapping behind her, effectively dodging the bludger that Raven had sent his way. The pair split through the remaining Gryffindor players flawlessly, getting the first shot of the game. Thankfully, Weasley sent the quaffle back into his sister’s hands with a flick of his broomstick.

Slytherin had the momentum, it was up to Bellamy, Ginny, and Monty to get it back

* * *

* * *

It was Clarke’s turn to be fuming. The match had been close but they had lost to Gryfinndor by fifty points after Potter caught the snitch. Her and Murphy, combined, had scored over half of the points which was another reason why she was angry. Slytherin could have won, if her teammates would’ve pulled their heads out of their asses, they could’ve---no they would’ve.

“Krabb, Goyle! What the hell was that?” She yelled as the team retreated back to their dormitories.

“Shove off, Qudditch is just a game. There are more important things to worry about.” Goyle snarled. He had about seven inches and eighty pounds on her but Clarke was ready to punch the living shit out of him.

“More important things? Like what, you sitting on your pathetic ass until the Dark Lord tells you to go murder someone, huh? Newsflash, Goyle, that isn’t honorable, it’s downright ridiculous that you’re willing to kill for someone who doesn’t even know your name.” She scoffed, shoving past him, straight into Krabb’s wand that jabbed into her throat.

“Watch yourself, Griffin. You’re beginning to sound like Blake, Potter, and them Gryfinndors, trashing the Dark Lord like that.” His grip tightened on his wand.

Murphy scoffed. “What are you going to do, Krabb? I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen you cast a successful spell.” While he seemed calm, Clarke noticed Murphy’s hand slip into his robes in search for his own wand.

Whatever restraint that Krabb had possessed, dissolved with that comment. Clarke barely had any time to register what was going before she felt his fist connect with her. The unmistakable crack and immediate influx of blood that streamed down her face told her that her nose was indeed broken.

The blonde fell back with the force of the punch. She had been on the ground for less than a second before Goyle’s foot slammed into her ribs. Clarke let herself relish in the pain, Murphy’s protection charm made that easier, before standing.

“Stupefy!” Red light shot out of her wand, aimed at Krabb, who managed to cast a protection shield of his own at the last second.

Murphy sent his own spell at Goyle. “Griffin, they’re keeping up their protection shields. Until they’re down, our spells are going to do jack shit.”

“Tarantallegra!”

Krabb wasn’t expecting her to use such a frivolous spell in a duel. His confusion caused his protection shield to drop which allowed her spell to hit his chest. Milliseconds later, his legs were out of his conscious control, as they began to spasm wildly.

Murphy placed a hand on her hip and spun her around, switching their opponents. “Petrificus Totalus!” She yelled.

Goyle momentarily turned blue as his body froze but regained his color as he fell to the ground.

Murphy disarmed Krabb before using the same spell to finish him off. Silence surrounded the pair as they caught their breath. Dueling their housemates had not been on either of their minds when they had woke up that morning.

“Shit, Clarke. You look like shit.” He chuckled.

Clarke shoved him. “Shut it, Murphy. Let’s get out of here before Malfoy comes to check on his lackeys.”

The boy obliged and the two set a quick pace on their way back to the castle.

* * *

* * *

The Gryffindor Common Room was packed full, the house celebrating their win over their notorious rivals. George and Fred had even snuck in bottles of moonshines, making it a true party. But with the entirety of year six involved, the room overheated fast.

Bellamy snagged a bottle before slipping away from the crowd.

“It’s awfully late to be going on a walk don’t you think, Mr. Blake?”

In his drunken state, Bellamy jumped at the sound of the Fat Lady’s voice. He waved her off, insisting that he would be back before curfew. Hogwarts was so far removed from both the wizarding and muggle worlds that Bellamy believed it was here where the stars gave off the most light.

He found himself wandering down the front steps of the castle, which let out into the main courtyard. The quiet was pure bliss until footsteps echoed down the corridors that ran alongside the outside space. Bellamy groaned and turned toward the source of the noise, he caught sight of the couple just as they were turning the corner, and, upon doing so, he felt all the moonshine leave his system.

After practically raising her, Bellamy could recognize his sister anywhere (and he may have charmed her cloak to give off a subtle glow back when she first started). He started after her but only made it a few steps before he felt a hand grasp his wrist.

Okay, maybe the moonshine hadn’t completely left his system because he could have sworn someone touched him but when he turned there was no one there. He was still alone.

Bellamy blinked, and then, in all of her self-righteous glory, Clarke Griffin had materialized beside him.

“Boo!” She whispered.

Startled, he stumbled back several steps, inciting a fit of satisfied laughter from the blonde.

“I don’t have time for your shit, Griffin. There’s currently some guy taking advantage of my sister so excuse while I go beat his ass.” He brought the bottle to his lips and took a gulp of the alcohol before moving to find his sister for the second time only to be stopped by Clarke. For the second time.

“Lincoln would do a number on you in this state of yours.” She said simply while reaching out to take the bottle from him.

“Lincoln? A seventh year! Is the guy that I just saw my sister snogging?” Now he really did have a reason to beat his ass. And he would do just that, if Clarke would get out of his damn way.

“Relax, Blake, I’m chaperoning.”

Was he dreaming? Did Clarke Griffin actually admit to doing a decent thing?

“Try not to look so surprised.” She added.

He couldn’t help himself from asking, “Why?”

She shrugged. “Well, I didn’t do it for you, for obvious reasons, I did it for Octavia because she came to me and asked me to. Would I much rather be in my own common room, trading insults with Murphy right now? Yes, but I’ve seen the way things have been progressing between them and I figured they’d meet with or without me, so here I am.”

Noticing his confusion, she continued, “Lincoln was her Defense Against The Dark Arts tutor at the start of term but they've been seeing each other since Halloween.”

“How do you know all this?” Bellamy felt the jealousy seep into his tone despite his best efforts.

“She told me, dumb ass. I know it goes against your core beliefs that someone would want to befriend me but your sister did. She started our friendship, despite me warning her what you might think about it.” Clarke said pointedly.

His cheeks flared with shame remembering how he had sought Clarke out and threatened her after the Sorting Ceremony in their fourth year, after Octavia had been sorted in Slytherin. NOt his best day.

During their conversation, Bellamy and Clarke had started on a walk of their own. They were in better light now. The moonlight illuminated the discoloration on Clarke’s face that had been previously hidden by the shadows. Her nose was out of line and surrounded by flecks of dried blood, the injury had provoked bruising around the area.

“What happened to your nose?” He blamed his concern on his still slightly tipsy state.

She was just as surprised by his inquiry as he was, the shock went as fast as it came, her usual placid expression. “Careful there, Bellamy, it sounds like you might actually care about what happened to my face.”

The clocktower then gave off eleven and half chimes, signaling the students that it was eleven thirty, the last chance for them to get back to their dormitories before the punishment for getting caught out after hours turned from a month’s worth of detention to that and a penalty of fifty points being taken from one’s house.

“I suppose it’s best that we return to our dorms, Mr. Blake. I’ll be sure to collect Octavia on my way back.” Clarke turned to leave with a parting nod.

Bellamy watched her proceed down the corridor before starting back to his own dorm.

If he had been sober, maybe he would have realized that Clarke never answered his question.

* * *

* * *

In hindsight, Clarke probably should have let Murphy use a healing charm to fix her nose but this was different than the other times. If her mother even suspected that people doubted the power of the Griffin estate, Clarke would be pulled from Hogwarts.

She didn’t even want to think what her life would be like then.

The only reason Abby had relented and had let Clarke return for her sixth year was because she knew it would raise suspicions if she didn’t. Her mother may hate Albus Dumblemore , but one indisputable fact was that Hogwarts provided the best magical education that a witch or wizard could get.

Clarke could handle a few whispers and rumors, Merlin knew that students already gossiped about her regardless.

And she really couldn’t blame them, the Griffin name gained prestige over the decades the closer that they got to the Dark Lord. She knew that there were kids out there who dreamed of the power that she was set to inherit, well up until her mother discovered her involvement in her father’s proposal.

Even if Clarke hadn’t betrayed her, she wasn’t sure if her mother ever had intentions of signing away the family’s fortune to her.

She couldn’t care less about the money or her mother’s plans for her to become a healer at St. Mungos, it was a respectable position but one that did little to solve the problems that threatened the wizarding world.

Her most pressing predicament at the moment was the fact that the bruising had intensified overnight. What had been a yellowish-green was now light purple, and stretched across the bridge of her nose and beneath her eyes.

Clarke shook her head, trying to release the tension that had accumulated in her neck.She would talk to Murphy at breakfast and decide the best course of action going forward. Personally, she thought oblivating the pair was a little extreme but that was for a later conversation.

* * *

* * *

“You look like hell.” Raven mused as Bellamy took his seat next to her the following morning.

Bellamy normally slept like a rock after drinking like he had but his drunken rendezvous with Clarke had him all out of sorts. More than anything, he wanted what little he still remembered from last night to be wrong, because then he still had plenty of reasons to hate Clarke Griffin.

He spent the duration of breakfast reminding himself to keep his glances towards Clarke to a minimum of three seconds. Her nose, and most of her face, was purple, when did that happen? She had been fine after the match.

Bellamy was in the middle of one of those said glances when she abruptly pushed away from the table and began to exit the Great Hall.

Shit, he needed to ask her what actually happened last night.

He bid his friends a short goodbye before starting after her, and he almost had her too but he turned a corner, the same corner she turned, and she was nowhere to be seen. “What the fuck, Griffin?” He mumbled under his breath.

Why was he seeking her out anyway? For god sake, he had to remind himself that she was Clarke Griffin afterall. Her and her renowned pureblood didn’t owe anything to anyone.

He felt a sharp poke in his back.

“What do you want, Blake? I could feel you staring at me the whole time, you do know that right? You’re not as discreet as you think you are.” Clarke put away her wand as he turned to face her.

Okay, just ask her. Ask her and you can be done with this. “What happened last night?”

Her face remained impassive but he noticed that her lips quirked up ever so slightly. “I didn’t take you for a lightweight. Nothing happened, I was out for a walk, same as you. We exchanged insults, that’s all.”

Clarke brushed past him and Bellamy couldn’t help but let out a sigh of relief.

* * *

* * *

“You crazy son of a bitch, Murphy!” Clarke hit him over the head with her potions textbook, earning a pointed look from Slughorn who was hovering between brewing stations. They were supposed to be practicing their brewing techniques for their practical on Friday.

She waited until the professor went to tend to another group across the classroom before continuing, “What do you mean you already oblivated them?” She hissed.

Murphy returned the favor and used his book to hit her arm. “I sleep in the same room as those bastards, Clarke. We both know it wouldn’t be above Krabb and Goyle to kill me in my sleep, so yes, I wiped the memory of our little quarrel from their memory,” Silence surrounded the two momentarily, Clarke watched as the gears turned in his head, “Plus, I knew what your mom would do if she found out about it.”

It was faint, the blush in his cheeks, but Clarke caught it nonetheless, and smiled before squeezing his hand. Murphy’s brows drew together and for good reason, neither of them had grown up in affectionate homes so physical touch was forgein to the both of them.

He pulled his hand out of hers and returned his attention to their cauldron. “Don’t let your head get too big now, Griffin. It was a cockroach’s move, you would’ve done the same thing.”

“I love you too, Murphy. Now hand me the knox weed, there’s no way in hell anyone is finishing this potion before us.”

* * *

* * *

If he remembered correctly, Octavia had a two hour block of Herbology on Tuesdays, which had just let out for the day. Bellamy leaned against the wall adjacent to the greenhouse doors and busied himself with an analysis on a Muggle classic, The Odyssey.

“Big brother, what are you doing down here? Slumming it with a fourth year?” His sister teased, appearing beside him.

He almost dropped his book. “Jesus, O, are you disapparating again? I told you to quit that, it’s dangerous, and, hell, I’m not even allowed to do it.”

She shrugged, tucking a hair behind her ear. “Lincoln’s been helping me practice.”

Why did that name sound so familiar?

“Lincoln, the Hufflepuff?” She nodded.

“Lincoln, the Hufflepuff, who happens to be a seventh year?” Octavia nodded again.

“What the hell is that about?”

“I thought Clarke said she told you last night. She said you were cool with it.”

Bellamy was practically shaking with indignation. Just as he thought he could start trusting that damned princess, she lied to him. Again. “I didn’t talk to Clarke last night, and I’m definitely not cool with my fourteen year old sister dating a guy that’s three years older than her.”

Now it was the younger girl’s turn to be angry, “Bell, I love you but you don’t get to waltz over here and decide who I can and can’t date, especially after I went almost three whole weeks without hearing from you. We’re in different years, not different schools!”

“O, Lincoln’s carelessly teaching you dangerous magic and snogging you whenever he pleases. It’s so obvious that he’s taking advantage of you. I’m sorry that you’re blinded by your infatuation with him to see it.” Bellamy snapped back, but he knew instantly that he had crossed a line.

The feuding siblings were alone by this point, the corridor had cleared out, with student’s heading to the Great Hall for lunch.

“It’s not dangerous! Clarke always accompanies me to the lessons. I trust her.” Octavia huffed before raising her wand.

Bellamy’s hand shot out and wrapped itself around his sister’s wrist. He needed to apologize, desperately he pleaded, “You can’t trust her kind, O.”

Octavia’s eyes narrowed, shining with ire. “I think you mean our kind, right? You know, since we’re in the same house and everything.”

Bellamy tried to protest but his sister was gone before his tongue could form the words, I’m sorry.

* * *

* * *

For the second time in two days, Clarke had a wand pressed to her throat. She glared up at her assailant, and the maroon and gold tie that he adorned.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing, Blake?” She said icily.

“I should’ve known that I could never trust a snake to tell the truth.” He hissed, increasing the intensity at which he held his wand with, pushing his wand in deeper into her neck.

“I am supposed to know what you’re referring to here?”

“When I asked you if anything happened last night, you purposely withheld the truth and lied to me about it.”

“What happened last night wasn’t important.” Clarke grunted, finding it difficult with the wall pressing into her still fragile ribs from the back and Bellamy applying excessive pressure to her front.

“You didn’t find my sister messing around with a seventh year to be of importance to you then?”

Clarke managed to shove his wand away, “If you didn’t have the alcohol tolerance of a prepubescent teenage girl, we wouldn’t even be having this argument right now.”

Bellamy had pulled her into an empty Transfiguration classroom, which was fitting because Clarke had the overwhelming urge to turn him into a toad.

Only inches separated them, but still, Clarke held her ground. In her experience, one only got this close to another person for fighting or argumentative purposes. She bent her knees slightly and braced her fingers around her wand, readying for herself if Bellamy were to suddenly attack.

But other people weren’t afraid of being in close proximity to others, Bellamy included. Clarke had lost track of the number of girls she had seen him snogging.

To him, being close was an intimate thing that was meant to be shared with the other party, not something to be held over one’s head. It made perfect sense that despite being absolutely livid with her, Bellamy possessed a level of calm that Clarke would never be able to achieve.

So when he took a slow step towards her, Clarke flinched and took a step back.

(If he hadn’t been consumed by his anger, he would’ve noticed the fear in her eyes.)

“You coerced my sister into practicing dangerous magic, Griffin.” Bellamy ground out, using the extra space between to send a stunning charm her way.

* * *

* * *

Clarke barely got her wand up, her last minute protection charm doing nothing to shield her from the blunt force that the spell produced on contact. She was launched several feet into the air before landing flat on her. With little air in her lungs, Clarke forced herself to stand and cast the first spell that came to mind, and the one that would put the most space between her and Bellamy, “Alarte Ascendare!”

Bellamy matched it with a spell of his own, his green sparks meeting her red in the middle of the classroom.

It was a battle of sheer individual will power now.

Clarke wanted this.

She wanted her spell to completely obliterate Bellamy’s so that she could relish in the moment that he would spend flying back in the air.

She wanted to cause him a fraction of the pain that he had forced upon her over the past six years.

She wanted him to know what it felt like to be small and weak for once in his life.  
She could feel all the emotions that she had bottled up over the last few years begin to break from the cage that she had forced them into so long ago.

With each step she took towards Bellamy, she imagined that little by little she was destroying the fence that her mother had trapped her in. Left foot, gone was all the times Clarke hadn’t gotten dinner because her mom had seen her playing with a halfblood outside. Right foot, and the memory of Abby telling her not to cry during her father’s funeral was wiped away.

And it felt fantastic, it made her feel powerful.

Clarke was only mere feet away from Bellamy, who’s spell had begun to dwindle, but then she saw it. Fear. The same fear that she felt whenever someone got too close to her or approached her too quickly. The fear that her mother had instilled in her.

She felt sick to her stomach, and quickly changed the nature of her spell to a disarming charm.

Bellamy’s wand flew from his hand and landed somewhere on the other side of the classroom but she still felt his eyes on her. God, she had let herself get caught up in the moment and had almost sent Bellamy through a wall made of solid marble.

She had let herself become blinded by the power she had felt, she was no better than her mother.

Taking a deep breath, Clarke steadied her breathing before speaking, “Your sister was never in any danger, Bellamy.”

Her bag had been abandoned on the opposite side of the room. Taking measured, swift steps, Clarke crossed in the room, in what she hoped looked like a calm manner, to retrieve it.

Her eyes strayed to Bellamy’s wand, which had happened to land inches away from her bag after she disarmed him.

* * *

* * *

Bellamy watched Clarke carefully, he didn’t want to take his eyes off her in case this whole giving up thing was a ruse.

Her last minute decision to transform her spell into a disarming charm was something only very powerful wizards and witches could pull it off successfully. He didn’t get why she had done it, if the roles would have been reversed, he wouldn’t have second guessed sending her through the wall.

But he couldn’t help but wonder, where the hell was his wand? He would wait for her to leave, then he would look for it.

“Here.”

Bellamy looked up to see Clarke holding out his wand to him. He took it gingerly, not believing if this was actually real.


	2. a great deal of bravery

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so it has been a minute since i've updated. 
> 
> main things to note for this chapter:
> 
> \- Raven is in Ravenclaw, Monty and Jasper are both in Hufflepuff. Miller is also in Gryffindor. I realized that I forgot that the houses of the other main characters weren't as clear as Bellamy and Clarke's.
> 
> \- The Sacred Thirty comes from the original Sacred Twenty-Eight, which is a list of wizarding families whose bloodlines are thought to be magically pure, meaning no one in the family has never married a muggle or half-blood. Clarke and Murphy's families are the additions to the list in this story
> 
> \- I like Slughorn, I don't really know why but I just do so if his characterization is a little different from the books, I apologize. I hate Snape, so I really wanted to provide some distinction between the two. 
> 
> \- If y'all have read books, you know that Harry had a kinda obvious obsession with Draco in their sixth year. Bellamy and Clarke's relationship is based on that, Bellamy (who is Harry in this situation) habitually thinks the worst of Clarke (who is Draco in this case). Clarke is doing what I believe Draco would have done if given the chance. 
> 
> \- I will do my best to write my story along the plot line of the Half-Blood Prince, and I will apologize now if any discrepancies come up in the future.

Clarke’s eyes were burning, granted she had been staring at the clock for the last two hours, anxiously waiting for the shorthand to get to twelve---that’s when Dumbledore said it would be the safest to leave for their meeting.

When he had first sought her out, the headmaster had been willing to meet early in the mornings, before classes began but Clarke had assured him nights were fine. Especially tonight, she had ran out of the sleeping potion Dumbledore had requested Slughorn to make on her behalf after he found out how nasty her nightmares could get.

She had pushed her bed into the corner closest to the door at the start of the term so coming in and out of the dormitory wasn’t a problem. Clarke went about getting ready as quietly as she could manage, pulling an old sweater of Murphy’s over her head, her elbow knocked into one of the posters of her bed.

The blonde swore under her breath and froze, waiting to see if any of the other girls had been stirred awake. Before arriving, Clarke had always been a light sleeper before arriving at Hogwarts, she had difficulty sleeping at home due to the constant commotion that the servants created as they tended to her mother’s countless desires.

She had learned that this was something she shared with her classmates after a particularly brutal thunderstorm had shook the castle during the first night of their fourth year. Slytherin house members didn’t acknowledge the apprehension that they all seemed to share, having all been groomed to mask any and every emotion they felt.

And sure enough, Daphne Greengrass stirred the bed beside Clarke, before mumbling something that Clarke didn’t quite catch, and rolling back over.

Clarke watched Daphne quietly as she finished dressing. Her family was a member of one of the Sacred Thirty, and since Griffin immediately followed Greengrass, Daphne was one of those people that had always been in her life, Clarke couldn’t recall a time where she didn’t know her but like most of the friendships Clarke had, it had gradually faded over time as Daphne frequently sided with Malfoy and as Clarke frequently did the opposite.

It was twelve ten when Clarke stood before the Gargoyle Corridor, an entrance to the headmaster’s office that only a handful of students were privy to.

“Acid pop.” She whispered.

Upon hearing the password, the Gargoyle began to turn clockwise, revealing a golden staircase. Clarke took her place on the bottom step as it began its slow ascent upward.

She had been in the Headmaster’s office a handful of times but it still took her breath away every time. The room was circular and was unofficially sectioned into three parts, the first was home to all the portraits of the previous Headmasters, the second was where she had most of her conversations with Dumbledore, at his desk, under the privacy that the surrounding bookshelves gave them, but the third was her favorite, consisting of a small reading room that had access to the built in loft.

She couldn’t help but smile when Dumbledore beckoned her back into the room but the older professor didn’t stop there, and continued up the stairs before settling in one of two chairs that sat in the loft.

Not wanting to seem too excited, Clarke took her time climbing the stairs, letting her eyes wander over the bookshelves she passed, and allowing her fingers to trace the subtle craving on the staircase’s railing.

“You seem to have an affinity for my loft, Miss Griffin.”

Clarke shrugged, “How could you not?”

Dumbledore smiled in agreement and gestured for her to take the seat next to him. His blue eyes passed over her face quickly, the bruising around her nose was obvious but he paid it no attention. Clarke sat down and with a wave of her teacher’s hand, a tray floated over. “Do you fancy tea or hot chocolate?”

“I’ll take my usual, hot chocolate with whipped cream and three marshmallows.”

“Miss Griffin, you are your father’s daughter.” Dumbledore chuckled.

God, how she hoped that was true.

Silence enveloped the pair as they each enjoyed the warmth that spread through their bodies after their first drink, relishing in the comfort and companionship that neither would admit they needed.

“So, you must be wondering why I requested that you come tonight rather than next week,” Dumbledore began, “Excuse my abruptness, but I’m afraid I have quite a big ask of you, one that couldn’t wait and unfortunately goes against our previous arrangements.”

Clarke tightened her grip around her mug, but nodded. She knew what he was about to say but she desperately wished that she was wrong.

“My ask is that you return home during our Christmas holiday break.”

“This is about my mother’s party, isn’t it?” Clarke inquired, before taking a long drink of her hot chocolate. The warm drink did little to placate the cold fear that had begun to spread through her body.

The Griffin Manor held an annual winter ball, invitations were sent only to the Sacred Thirty, who were allowed to bring a plus one if need be. The Griffin matriarch was in charge of organizing the infamous event ever since it was first crafted by her father’s great-great-great-great grandmother. Her mother had been in charge of organizing the event for the last six years, ever since Agatha Griffin, her father’s mother, had passed away.

Despite having a direct blood connection to the ball, Clarke had first been in attendance for it when she was thirteen, certain activities that conspired at the dance required there to be a restriction on who could attend. Once you were eligible, there was getting out of it.

Even with a particularly nasty case of Scrofungulus, Clarke had been forced to go last year.

“Yes, my dear, I’m afraid so. It’s very rare these days that the entirety of Voldermort’s original followers gather together, your family’s ball is an opportunity that the Order cannot afford to pass up,” The older man set a gentle hand on her knee, “Clarke, I wouldn’t be asking unless it was absolutely necessary.”

This is what Dad would want, she thought before answering.

“What do you want me to do?”

* * *

* * *

If it had been Bellamy’s choice, he would have made Advanced Potions have the first block after lunch because trudging his way down to the dungeons at eight o’clock in the morning certainly had its way of draining even more energy out of him.

He still didn’t know exactly why he had switched into the class because his current aspiration was to be an Ancient Runes professor and Advanced Potions was only required if you were interested in becoming an auror or nurse at St. Mungo’s.

The dungeons, per usual, were freezing and had Bellamy wishing that he would have brought an extra sweater. Yawning, he made his way to his seat; a group of Slytherins swarmed around the station beside him, trying to get a word in with Voldermort’s newest lackey no doubt. In the midst of fighting with the princess, Qudditch, studying, and finding new hexes to use on the princess, it frequently slipped his mind that Advanced Potions, given the smaller number of students eligible to take it, didn’t do block scheduling anymore, meaning he would have to start his days with the snakes for the foreseeable future.

Potter and Weasley stumbled into the classroom during Slughorn’s explanation of the various potions that they would be brewing over the next fortnight. The pair grabbed an extra copy of the textbook before sitting at the station adjacent to Bellamy, who, given his seats close proximity to the Amortentia potion, took deep breaths through his mouth to keep it from wafting into his nose.

Slughorn drew the students attention back to the front of the classroom, and began instructing the students on what potion they would be brewing---Draught of the Living Death, a potion that induced a death-like state of slumber upon its drinker. It was an extremely difficult option, everyone in the class was already aware of that, but Slughorn’s prattling about how only one student had been successful in concocting it heightened the anxiety that they all felt.

A vile of Felix Felices was promised to the student that brewed the most acceptable version of the potion. Opening his book, Bellamy already knew he would not be the one to receive that vile. He was prideful, no doubt, but one look at the recipe and the lack of confidence that everyone, even Granger, seemed to express told him that he wasn’t alone in this feeling.

Valerian roots soon cluttered the floor all around him, and by step nine, which said that his potion should be the color of lilacs, instead, a blackcurrant remained. Bellamy slammed a fist on the table, and glanced around the room.

Seamus, per usual, was covered in ash, and had resorted to throwing the remaining contents of his ingredients into his cauldron all at once. The Pavaratii twins had melted off the bottoms of their stirring sticks, and the Slytherins had decided to use one cauldron, Malfoy’s, of course, and were arguing over who messed up step nine.

Finishing his survey, Bellamy’s gaze settled on Clarke, who was still hunched over her station with John Murphy flanking her side. For Merlin’s sake, when did she get here? Must have been sometime after Slughorn had released the class to start on their potions. He watched as Murphy handed her the designated ingredients, and Clarke added them to her mixture without even blinking.

He licked his lips, suppressing the urge to inform Slughorn that they were going against the rules, but an inkling of fury grew out from his chest, its tendrils wrapping themselves around his veins until Bellamy was certain he would be hot to the touch.

In the end, it was Potter that victoriously received the Felix Felices and while he felt proud for having a fellow housemember best their rivals, Bellamy couldn’t shake the urge of wanting to tell Slughorn of the cheating that had conspired right underneath his nose. He took his time gathering his materials, waiting for the classroom to clear out, until it was just him and his professor. Clarke and Murphy were still at their station, but he would be damned before he let them get away with cheating.

“Sir,” he began, as he approached Slughorn, “I’m sorry to bother you but I need to ask, were you aware that your fellow Slytherins were cheating during class today?”

“Whatever do you mean, Blaine?” Slughorn, while kind in his teachings, was notorious for forgetting names, well, being very selective in those he chose to remember.

“I couldn’t help but notice that they completely disregarded your instructions to work on the potion by themselves,” He articulated loudly.

“Oh, Gryffindors, how I marvel at your sense of morals. To answer your question, Bartholmew, I did take notice of it, and in doing so, I offered them no extra assistance and I didn’t bother to check their final product,” The professor laughed at Bellamy’s expression, “Snape is an excellent potions master, but his teaching methods were, let’s say, more conservative than my own. Over the course of our time together, Bennett, I hope you learn that I award students based on individual merit alone.”

Slughorn excused himself from the conversation before retreating to the back of the classroom and engaging in an animated conversation with Murphy and Clarke. Bellamy found himself even more infrutitaed than before after hearing the older man call the pair by their proper names.

* * *

* * *

“Miss Griffin, I was sorry to see you and Mr. Murphy arrive late to my lesson. I was looking forward to seeing the brewing competition between you and Mr. Potter. Dare I say, you’re one of few that possess the capabilities of besting the Chosen One.”

Clarke felt an easy grin form on her lips, “I believe you overestimate my abilities, professor.”

Slughorn waved off her reply. “Nonsense, both your mothers were incredibly gifted in the art of potion making. It was a shame to hear about Lily’s death, and, uh---”

“My mother dedicating herself to Voldemort?” Clarke offered, though her eyes never strayed from her potion as she counted the number of times she stirred it. She didn’t miss the way Slughorn flinched at the forbidden name.

Silence surrounded them as Clarke stirred her brew for the final time, the potion slowly turning pale pink in color.

Clearing his throat, Slughorn filled the quiet. “Again, I wish your arrival would have been punctual. It would have been exciting to have you compete against Potter. Your draught makes a compelling argument for you to have been the one to receive the Felix Felices.”

Murphy elbowed Clarke’s side, reminding her of Dumbledore’s advice.

“I’d gladly accept my own vile if that’s what you’re offering.”

“Clarke, you say that with no regard to the rarity of Liquid Luck as an entirety. Dumbledore gave that vile to me at a great financial cost,” he paused as he met Clarke’s knowing gaze, “and I suppose it was he who set you here to implore me for another , after indulging you on the existence of a second vile.”

Casting a quick glance at Murphy, she nodded, letting him know to cast a Muffliato charm, the next step of their plan. No one else could know about it. “Sir, I wouldn’t ask unless it was absolutely pertinent to the matter at hand.”

“And what matter might that be?”

“Dumbledore has tasked me with retrieving information from the attendants of my mother’s part. Iit could be vital to the Order’s continued success.”

Slughorn returned to the front of the classroom and rummaged through the cabinet next to his desk.

Clarke quickly gathered her materials and shouldered her bag, her locked eyes with Murphy in the process, they couldn’t believe their luck, both had prepared themselves to charm, or potentially hex, Slughorn, which was extremely against school rules.

When he finally procured it, with a tentative hand, Slughorn held out the second of Felix Felices.

“If I am to properly play my role in this scheme of yours, I’m not to ask questions aren’t I?” Slughorn inquired.

The vile was slightly smaller than the one that Potter had been given but Clarke took the potion gratefully nonetheless. “Honestly, professor,” the blonde began, “if you had any, I don’t think I’m permitted to answer them.”

* * *

* * *

Bellamy had trouble focusing during the rest of his classes, having accidentally transfigured his chair into a door instead of a broom, zoning out during his Ancient Runes lecture, and now, sitting in the Great Hall, he picked at his food, deep in thought.

Miller nudged his shoulder, “You alright there, Bell? You've been out of sorts all day.”

Bellamy glanced over his shoulder, checking to make sure Clarke and Murphy weren’t paying him any attention. “I think Clarke used the Muffliato charm on me after potions this morning, when she stayed after to talk to Slughorn.”

“Why did you stay after?”

“Huh?”

Miller chuckled. “In order for the charm to work, you have to be within the designated range of the person who cast it. Why’d you stay after?”

“Clarke stays after with Voldermort’s favorite professor, and that doesn’t raise your suspicions? C’mon, Miller, there’s got to be a reason why Riddle favored Slughorn.” Bellamy insisted, using his fork to steal a piece of fruit off his friend’s plate.

“Bell, I’m not disagreeing with you, but I am saying that making all these accusations without any evidence will drive you crazy.”

“If we’re talking about baseless accusations, you punched Collins last month after hearing a ru---”

“That’s different, he trashed my relationship with Bryan. I had more than enough reason for doing what I did. Get me some solid incrimminating evidence about Clarke, and I’ll be the first one to hex her.”

Raven later joined them, along with Monty and Jasper, the addition of blue and yellow attire clashed among the maroon of the Gryffindor table. The rest of the meal was spent discussing whatever each other’s plans were over break. Bellamy was spending his holiday at home instead of remaining at school.

His mom wasn’t perfect, but he knew he was lucky. Aurora Blake was the best person he knew, having more than enough reasons to have given up, she had been trapped in more than one toxic relationship and fought her way out to protect her kids. Her love was unconditional, unwavering even during his third year when he had refused to return home for Christmas after finding out the truth about his dad---a man she had told him died in the First Wizarding War had actually left the two of them high and dry.

Not wanting to give up on the man he had idolized his whole life and needing someone to blame, he didn’t reply to any of the owls she had sent for the rest of the year. Bellamy had lost his resolve upon seeing her waiting patiently at platform nine and three quarters; she put no blame on his shoulders.

Since then, he had written to her practically every day when he was at school, feeling guilty for having missed out on an entire year of correspondence with her.

The conversation around him, including his group’s, slowed to halt as everyone took notice of Dumbledore strolling through the Great Hall. Not that it was entirely unheard of for the headmaster to be here, but it was entirely unheard of, especially given the fact that lunch, unlike dinner, wasn’t a mandatory meal.

With meticulous eyes, he watched Clarke. She continued her conversation with Murphy, her hands moving rapidly in the air. Whatever she was talking about, it must have been important, he thought. Murphy nudged her, and her hands froze, she wasted no time in shouldering her bag before leaving---no, following Dumbledore out of the hall.

“I’ll see you guys,” Bellamy said quickly and gathered his own things. To not make his intentions too obvious, he kept a considerable distance between himself and Dumbledore.

* * *

* * *

Dumbledore guided Clarke into the nearest classroom.

“Have our plans changed, professor?” She asked, closing the door behind her.

The older man waved off her concerns, “No, my dear. I was organizing my desk, and I found this. I figured you would like to have it.”

The package was wrapped in faded paper and fraying twine, it was clear it had been packed away in a hurry. Clarke undid the knot in the string and unwrapped it. She felt her breath catch in her throat as she took the uncovered piece of parchment in her hands. It was nothing special, a classic enchanted picture where her and her father. They were in the manor’s kitchen, which was a mess and had more flour on their heads than actual hair; to top it all off. The picture had been taken right as they had smashed an egg in the other’s hair, she had thought she would catch her dad off guard. Clearly, her dad had been thinking the same thing.

Things had been so simple then. While her dad had already begun his research on helping Muggleborns (Clarke would find that out after he died), his involvement hadn’t been found out yet so he was still working with the Comet Trading Company to finetune the mechanics of Qudditch’s broom. She was missing a few teeth so Clarke assumed she was five or six in the photo.

“Why. . .how do you have this?” She managed to ask.  
“I was close with your father when he was a student here. After he graduated, we would exchange the occasional owl. If I remember correctly, you casted your first spell right before this photo was taken, unintentionally, of course.”

“Thank you, headmaster. I really appreciate this.”

Flipping the picture over, Clarke instantly recognized her father’s messy scrawl on the back, his hand was never fast enough to keep up with his brain. He always wanted to do more than he had time for. She carefully placed the picture in her bag---no else besides Murphy knew that it was the only picture that she had left of her father. Her mother had been quick to “cleanse the house” after his death, burning any and all clothes, pictures, mementos, etc, that reminded her of him.

“Be sure to use a Concealing Charm if you send an owl. I wish you the best luck at the ball, Ms. Griffin.” With a parting nod, and a snap of his fingers, Dumbledore disapparated from the classroom.

* * *

* * *

Hundreds of scenarios were flying through Bellamy’s mind. What was Clarke planning? Had her mother put her up to this? Get close to Dumbledore? He had to admit it was a good idea, getting information straight from the source. Though the Order didn’t have an official leader, it didn’t take a genius to figure out that Dumbledore was their main source of intel. If Clarke was successful in befriending Dumbledore, soon she--and the rest of Voldmort’s lackeys---would know everything about the resistance.

He was chewing at the edge of his thumbnail when Clarke emerged from the classroom. She saw him immediately, granted he was completely conspicuous, standing in the middle of an almost deserted corridor. The blonde scowled and marched up to him.

“You’ve been staring at me all day, can I do something for you, Blake?”

“I want to know what Slughorn gave you after class.”

“He didn’t give me anything. I stayed after class and we each had a glass of pumpkin juice. Now stop following me, aren’t you starting to feel a little pathetic?”

He clenched and unclenched his fists. Bellamy would never lay a hand on a girl but he wasn’t above jinxing one.

“Ebulio.”

The jinx caused a large bubble of water to form around Clarke, trapping her inside. Bellamy snagged her book bag just before it closed.

“You know, Blake, if you needed some spare parchment or an extra quill, all you had to do was ask.” Clarke chirped from inside the bubble. Oh how Bellamy wished that the bubble had some noise-canceling properties, the princess’s voice was particularly annoying.

Where was it? He knew Slughorn had given her something, he would bet his life on it.

God, she was organized. Assignments for each class were rolled, and tied together, her ink bottles had their own designated class as well---blue for Alchemy, red for Ancient Runes, black for Potions. The bottles for Defense Against the Dark Arts and Transfiguration were empty, and Bellamy knew that somewhere, there was a list whose contents included, but were definitely not limited to, reminding Clarke that she needed to buy replacements.

His hand brushed a small package, it was barely big enough to be called that, its wrappings made it slightly thicker than a normal piece of parchment. “What’s this?”

Clarke rolled her eyes, “It’s a piece of parchment, Blake. What did you think it was, that map that the Weasley twins gave Potter a couple years back?”

Bellamy watched her with careful eyes. Her posture remained tall, and her attitude nonchalant, but her eyes gave her away, glancing back and forth between the package in his hands and his eyes.

It was clear that this package held a certain amount of significance to the princess. She was nervous about losing it.

* * *

* * *

“I suppose you wouldn’t mind if I kept it then?”

Through gritted teeth, Clarke answered, “Of course not.”

When they had first begun their meetings, Dumbledore had insisted on the fact that they were to retain their clandestine nature. Bellamy was poking at her, urging a reaction that would prove that she was close to the headmaster---a reaction she couldn’t give.

“See you after break, Griffin.” With a smirk, Bellamy turned and sauntered down the hallway, leaving Clarke in the bubble. Her bookbag hit the floor with a thud, and Clarke winced at the sound of her ink bottles cracking---an entire organization system out the window.

She hadn’t seen the Ebulio enchantment coming, though it was mundane for her taste because its effects were so easy to reverse. Finite Incantatem was a very underrated and simple countercurse that was taught in third year Charms. While its abilities were limited when it came to more complex magic, Containment Charms stood no chance against it.

The train was leaving after dinner, and Clarke wasn’t even close to being finished packing. She did have Alchemy and a free period, which she should probably use to study for the tests that would greet them after break, but there was some serious mental preparation to be done if she had to face her mother within the next eight hours.

Packing would distract her from the fact that Bellamy Blake currently possessed the last picture of her father, and thinking about the endless black mailing he could pull if he figured out how much it meant to her.


	3. something unpleasant lies ahead

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here i am again! i was at my cabin for 10 days without reception so that's why i disappeared there for a second. i type that acting like i'm one of the writers on here that is able to post on a regular schedule. cheers to them because i am not that type of writer.
> 
> things to note for this chapter: 
> 
> \- I decided on Nottingham for the Muggle city that Bellamy grew up. The descriptions of the city came after a very  
> short googling process. I apologize if I wrote it wrong, if anyone has any information about it that I got wrong or  
> didn't include please let me know. 
> 
> \- I repeated words more than I normally do in this chapter, but that was because I really wanted to establish the differences between Bellamy and Clarke's home lives.
> 
> as usual, thank you for reading!!! and please please please leave your thoughts in the comments or drop a kudo:))
> 
> ALSO I SPENT WAY TOO LONG MAKING AESTHETIC BOARDS FOR THIS STORY TODAY TO NOT HAVE THEM BE INCLUDED. CAN SOMEONE PLS TEACH/HELP ME GET THEM UPLOADED? THEYRE ON MY TUMBLR @avonleasangel

The taxi ride back to his mom’s was probably one of the more awkward things Bellamy had to endure; in the midst of studying for his tests and turning in his Herbology paper he hadn’t found the time to apologize to his sister. Rightfully so, she had froze him out the whole time on the train---it had been the first time he had seen her voluntarily study for her classes.

He had to do it now. Their mother deserved more than being subject to her daughter’s silent treatment. Especially when this was one of the few times they got to be home together.

“Octavia, I---”

“I’m not in the mood for one your superfluous apologizes, big brother.” She spat icily, not looking up from her textbook.

“There is nothing superfluous about my apology, if you would let me get to it I think you would understand.” He wanted to say more, but the taxi rolled a stop in front of their apartment building.

He attempted to start again, “C’mon, O, mom shouldn’t have to deal with this argument.”

To that, his sister scoffed. “You’re only doing this for mom’s sake, not because you’re actually sorry about what you said. There are some really shitty kids in Slytherin, I can’t deny that, but you Gryffindors, and everyone else at school, see green and instantly makes up their mind that there is nothing more to the Slytherin house than just a bunch of scumbags.”

“Clarke is one of those scumbags that I’m trying to protect you from!” Bellamy interrupted, “Her and Murphy---”

“--are really good people, Bell. They’re my friends, and I’m tired of your biases and prejudices that you have against my house get in the way of our relationship.” Octavia let out an exasperated sigh, “Look, you’re right about mom. I’ll drop it for now, but when we get back to school, I don’t want you talking to me.”

Knowing she wanted space, Bellamy gave her a head start on the stairs.

* * *

* * *

Clarke had been back at Griffin Manor for all of ten minutes, and she had already contemplated throwing herself down the main staircase. She would have if her mother hadn’t perfected her Apsikey charm, it essentially made the whole bone-breaking idea frivolous since it would no longer get her out of the house.

“Your mother has arranged for you to wait here until she returns home.” Byrne said sternly, motioning for Clarke to go into her room. When she hesitated, a gruff hand was placed on her back and she was shoved inside.

The clock on the wall read a quarter past three; if her mother really was finishing her shift at St. Mungo’s then she’d be home by dinner, but if she was out on the ‘errands’ that she thought Clarke didn’t know about, then it’d be dark before she considered coming home.

Clarke felt a sizable pang of guilt for wishing it was the latter.

The blonde drew her wand and brought from her hip to shoulder in a long, sweeping arch; immediately her trunk unlatched, and her clothes began flying across her room, returning to their spots in her closet, dresser, and the chest that sat at the foot of her bed. A flash of grey and black flashed across her peripherals, she grabbed the sweater out of the air instinctively.

It had belonged to Wells before she had snagged it from his closet two springs ago, besides it being one of the very few articles of clothing that were not silver or grey. God, she missed him. Thelonius had ignored her constant bribes and pleaded to keep Wells at Hogwarts. That had been the last time she had seen either of them. After her mother had found about the truth about Theloinus’s marriage to Wells’s mom, who had been a muggleborn, she had stopped returning owls.

Seeing Wells was exactly what she needed right now, Clarke decided. Her bag of floo powder was hidden under a loose floorboard under her bed and she had forgotten how much other crap had found its way underneath her bed over time. Her fingers brushed against pouches of broken quills, old cauldrons, expired candy from Honeydukes until they finally felt the small tweed sack that she had been looking for.

“Wells Jaha.” She said softly, throwing two handfuls of floo powder into her fireplace. The kindle burst to life in a spark of bright, green flames. Clarke watched them ebb and flow while she waited for her friend. Merlin, she had so much that she yearned to talk to him about, granted everything that concerned her connection to Dumbledore was off the table, but she could use some advice on how to get the picture of her father back while getting revenge on Bellamy Blake at the same time.

After several minutes, the flames finally died down and the coals took the form of Wells’s face, “Clarke! You’re late, I’ve been ignoring my dad for the past twenty minutes waiting for this talk.”

  
“How’d you know I’d call?”

“Please, I know you better than anyone, Clarke, plus I also happen to know that it’s the last day of fall term. You’re back at the house, which made this talk inevitable.”  
“You’re right on all accounts, per usual.” An easy laugh fell from her lips, the kind that only Wells could get out of her, “Besides the obvious, I need advice.”

“I’m going to need more context than. C’mon, what are we talking about here? Class? Quidditch? Boys? Sex with Boys?”

“If we’re going for specifics, it’s Bellamy Blake.”

“You’re having sex with Bellamy Blake?” Wells yelled proudly through the portal, “It’s about damn time!”

Clarke crumbled a copy of the Daily Prophet and chucked into the fire, “Would you quit it with that? We’ve hated each other since first year. I have a hard time picturing any scenario where we’re not hurtling insults back and forth, let alone one where we’re sexually involved with each other.”

“Remember what the muggles say, Clarke, there’s a fine line between love and hate. You and Bellamy have been riding said line hard for years---”

“Back to what I was saying, Bellamy Blake. He stole something of mine and I need to get it back.”

* * *

* * *

Bellamy loved the wizarding world, but Friends had a special place in his heart. The antenna on the television in the living room was duct-taped to keep it at exactly seventy-eight degrees, anything higher and it wouldn’t pick up the American channels, and if it dropped too low, the device would get stuck on the Muggle news.

The problems that Ross, Rachel, Chandler, Joey, and Phoebe faced were so incredibly simple and mundane when he compared them to his own, which, unfortunately, couldn’t be solved in twenty-two minutes. Now, if Clarke Griffin would apparate off the face of the planet---what a day that would be. Normally, the sitcom had no problem enveloping Bellamy into Central Perk, but not even Joey’s sarcastic remarks could distract him from his thoughts.

He wished that his friends were open to the idea of phones, then he could be hashing out his theories with Miller or Raven, but they were all very suspicious about the whole thing. Despite having roots in the Muggle world, his friends were more trusting of the magic and charms that ruled the wizarding world. Jasper and Monty had explained their theories about the Muggle government had tapped all the phones in Britain, the argument had been surprisingly convincing and well researched.

So, he was left to sort out his quandaries by himself since Octavia was also still icing him out.  
“Hey, O, quit being a bum and come help decorate the tree!” Aurora called from the living room.

Octavia came from her room, took a seat next to him on the couch. The tree their mother had gotten from the supermarket down the street was small, Bellamy would bet it was probably the smallest one they had, but the countless ornaments that had been accumulated over the years would no doubt liven the poor thing up.

Just like every other year, Bellamy and Octavia tried to help their mom with the tree, but after ten minutes of Aurora going back and rearranging every ornament that they hung, sequestered the siblings to the couch.

Bellamy was finally able to let go of the breath he had been holding when Octavia draped her legs over his lap. He may have not had a lavish house or an excess of money, but he did have a mom and sister that loved him, and that was more than valuable than all the luxuries out there.

* * *

* * *

Clarke sat alone at the dinner table; the sheer size of it made the situation seem more melancholy than it actually was. Her plate remained empty, even though she was surrounded by lavish dishes that the house elves had probably spent hours laboring on. Dinner had always been at six thirty sharp. Now, forty minutes after the presumed dining time, her mother had yet to show---not that Clarke was complaining, but habit kept her from eating.

At the distinctive sound of an abrupt gust of wind from the kitchen, Clarke immediately straightened and put her hands in her lap. Seconds later, Abby Griffin burst into the dining room, flanked by Byrne and Sydney.

“It’s reassuring to see that Hogwarts hasn’t completely corrupted my daughter!” Abby quipped as she took the seat at the head of the table. Byrne and Sydney took the adjacent seats next to her, leaving several feet between themselves and Clarke.

“Old habits die hard.” Clarke replied smoothly, her voice taking on the complacent tone that she had crafted over the years.

Abby’s eyes glinted dangerously, “Clarke, you haven’t greeted our guests.”

Clarke bid a nod to them before continuing, “I haven’t seen Ripley since I’ve been back, has she been working in the mornings?”

The adults all chortled at her question, almost as if they were teenagers engaging in an inside joke.

“I apologize, I don’t see what’s funny about my question.”

It was Byrne who responded, taking too much pleasure in doing so, “The manky old house elf that always wore that horrid purple pillow case? Your mother killed her a few weeks ago.”

And just like that, Clarke lost her appetite, “Mother, I’m feeling rather faint. May I go lay down?”

“You know, Sydney, Clarke looks like she could stand to lose a few pounds don’t you think?”

Sydney concurred immediately, “I was thinking the same thing!”

“Off to bed then.” Abby dismissed her with a wave of her hand.

Clarke excused herself and took the stairs at a rapid pace. Her legs carried her to the library, where the only picture of their family remained. “Where is it?” She hissed as her eyes scanned the walls up and down. Finally, she found it, hanging between her mom and dad’s class photo and a large painting of the Slytherin serpent.

The photo had been taken right after Clarke had been born. Her mother was holding the bundle of blankets that she was wrapped in while her dad gazed down at his wife and daughter affectionately.

Jake Griffin had always insisted on the fact that her mom wasn’t always like this. Her mother had been forced into getting the Dark Mark out of familial obligation, that she had joined him in fighting against Voldemort in the war. Despite his reassurances, Clarke knew that all the good in her mother had been inspired by her dad; now that he was gone, there wasn’t any left.

Her influence was limited, but she had always snuck Clarke extra sweets from the kitchen after dinner. Ripley had made Griffin Manor feel the way it was supposed to be, like home. Ripley had always been intrigued by her stories of Hogwarts and Murphy, and would bring hot chocolate to her during the cold winter break. Clarke wouldn’t go as far to describe Ripley as maternal, more like a sister she never had. Now she almost wished Ripley had been rebellious or defiant, then that would explain why her mother had murdered her.

But, knowing both her mother and Ripley, Clarke knew that wasn’t the case. Abby had probably killed her just like she did everything now, recklessly and without reason.

* * *

* * *

  
Aurora didn’t have enough money to spend on presents, but had put in extra time making an exquisite breakfast of scones, eggs, and freshly squeezed orange juice. He and Octavia had pooled their money to buy their mom what looked like more several months worth of candy from Honeydukes, knowing how much she had grown to like them.

Christmas morning was shaping up to be perfectly normal at the Blake's, that was until Dumbledore disapparated into the living room.

“Oh good, I appear to be in the right apartment. I’m afraid I gave your upstairs neighbors quite the scare. Though, I do believe there isn’t much to be worried about, they happened to be quite inebriated for ten o’clock in the morning.”

Bellamy choked on his coffee, “Professor, what are you doing here?”

“Ah, yes, Mr. Blake, I was hoping that we could have a chat!” The older man beamed, taking in his surroundings.

Still sputtering on his drink, Aurora answered for him, “Of course you can, Professor. The roof will lend you the most privacy. You can talk with Bellamy there.”

The roof of the apartment overlooked the Nottingham skyline, it wasn’t much compared to the grander views of London, but Dumbledore marveled at the few skyscrapers that towered above their counterparts. “Have you lived here all your life?”

“I was born here if that’s what you’re asking.” Bellamy said. He hoped he didn’t sound as confused as he was. Dumbledore making house visits wasn’t entirely unheard of, Potter had received one at the beginning of the year, but he was Harry Potter---the Chosen One. Why the headmaster of Hogwarts was in one of the poorer cities in Britain on Christmas morning? Bellamy didn’t know.

“You’re probably wondering why I’m here, aren’t you, Mr. Blake?”

“I figured that much was obvious, from what I’ve heard your house visits are limited to those who are destined to defeat Voldemort.”

Dumbledore chuckled, “You are right in that sense, Bellamy. I don’t like to make these visits unless they’re absolutely necessary.”

“It must be pretty important if you decided to come to Nottingham on Christmas morning.”

“Right again. What I’ve come to talk to you about concerns the annual winter ball that the Griffin family holds at their estate. I have an informant, who has secured an invitation to the event, and happens to be in desperate need of a plus one---”

“Who’s the informant?” Bellamy interrupted.

“I need to know that I have your allegiance, both to myself and to the mission, before I disclose that information, Mr. Blake.” If Dumbledore noticed his sudden brusqueness, he didn’t care. His attention was currently fixated on unwrapping an acid pop that he had produced from his robes.

Bellamy bit his lip and wrapped his arms around himself, the cold certainly did not help with making cardinal decisions like this. He was familiar with the ball that the Princess’s family put on every year; it always received front page coverage in the Daily Prophet. Rita Skeeter called it the “Sacred Sanctum” since only the elitist purebloods received an invitation. The gathering was notorious for the illicit activities the attendees participated in.

“If I were to agree to this mission of yours, what would I have to do? Torture a Muggleborn? Hex a Half-blood?” Bellamy asked, agreeing to whatever Dumbledore was offering would certainly put himself in a situation where he would have to sacrifice his morals. He wasn’t sure if being buddies with the headmaster was worth that.

“No, the informant is already well aware of the circumstances and what needs to be done. They’ll be doing the heavy lifting. Realistically, all you’re needed for is to be an escort. I’m these balls are horribly old-fashioned, requiring all females to have a male plus one.”

If he agreed it would show Octavia he was more than the bigoted asshole she thought he was. It was a selfish thought, but Bellamy couldn’t help himself. “I’ll do it. Now can you tell me who I’ll be working with?”

“Excellent!” Dumbledore placed a warm hand on his shoulder, “Now, I must ask. Have you Disapparated before?”

Bellamy didn’t like where this was going. “Only during the practice lessons at school, but I don’t turn seventeen for another couple of months,” He said nervously.

“Grab my arm then---”

“Sir, what are we---”

“---grab my arm, Bellamy.” Dumbledore repeated.

Bellamy did as he was told; he opened his mouth to remind Dumbledore that he had only successfully Disapparated once at school, but too soon did he recognize the feeling of his body trying to squeeze through a small tube it was not meant to fit through, and knew it was futile.

As the pressure amounted in his head, Bellamy closed his eyes, praying that he had not just made the biggest mistake of his life.

* * *

* * *

The arrival of Dumbledore in her bedroom startled Clarke, causing the hand that had been carefully applying eyeliner to her eyelid to jerk, leaving a large black streak across her cheek. She had been expecting him to arrive for at least another hour. In only her robe, Clarke turned to face Dumbledore. . .and Bellamy Blake---who she had not been expecting.

“Professor, you’re early.” She greeted.

Dumbledore looked as if he were going to speak, but Bellamy beat him to it. “She’s the informant you told me about? There is no way in hell I’m escorting her to this stupid ball!” He snarled.

“Keep your voice down would you? You’re here barely a minute and have almost blown our cover.” Clarke hissed back. It only then just occurred to her that she was only in her robe, arguing with Bellamy Blake. She promptly tightened the robe’s belt around her waist.

Before Bellamy could retort, Dumbledore broke up the impending argument with a raise of this hand. “I wasn’t aware of this rivalry, but I trust that you both are professional enough to not let it interfere with the mission that I have tasked you with.”

Out of respect for their headmaster, the pair both swallowed their pride and allowed him to further explain what they were supposed to do. Well, Clarke went back to fixing her makeup while Bellamy got up to speed on the plan.

* * *

* * *

“I’m supposed to what now?” Bellamy exclaimed indignantly.

In the reflection of the mirror on the vanity, Bellamy watched Clarke roll her eyes at him. Dumbledore, however, remained incredibly calm, repeated himself, “You are to drink the Polyjuice potion that Ms. Griffin and I have crafted specially for this endeavor, and take on the role of Johnathan Murphy tonight.”

Bellamy threw up in his mouth. He thought he had misheard that part.

“Why don’t we save the Polyjuice potion for another time and Murphy takes on the role of Murphy tonight, and he can escort Clarke to the ball? I don’t think I have the acting capabilities to pull this off, you know? It’s takes a special level of talent to be that much of a ass---”

“I’ll have to stop you right there, Mr. Blake. Clarke informed me last night that Johnathan was under a high level of scrutiny at home and couldn’t be involved.” Dumbledore answered plainly.

The older man continued, “Bellamy, you seem highly uncomfortable with this assignment. I’d rather you back out than wreck this opportunity for Miss Griffin.”

He had to prove to Octavia that he was more than the colors of his house.

* * *

* * *

Clarke desperately wanted to sit down, but the tight bodice of her dress made her refrain from doing so. “Dress robes are not that difficult to put on, Bellamy!”

They were supposed to be downstairs ten minutes ago, and they would have been, but a certain someone was having trouble wrapping his head around the concept of dress robes. Finally, Bellamy emerged from behind the dressing screen, downed in both Murphy’s face and his dark green robes.

“Not a word, Griffin, not a single word.” He snarled, fixing his tie. Watching him cross the room, Clarke contemplated all the ways tonight could go wrong.

Clarke had to bite back a smirk, “Remember, let me do all the talking, and only eat the food that I give you.”

Reluctantly, he nodded and offered his arm to her.

Merlin, save us, she pleaded silently as she looped her arm through his.

* * *

* * *

Bellamy let Clarke lead him into the ballroom while he let his eyes trail over the tapestries and paintings that were hung on the walls. Everything was decorated to the green and silver colors of Slytherin house. Towering thirty head above their heads was the largest chandelier Bellamy had ever seen. Its crystals caught the moonlight and glittered like stars among the blackness that the ceilings had been enchanted to emulate.

“Clarke!”

Bellamy felt Clarke’s grip tighten around his arm at the sound of the voice. Narcissa Malfoy resemblance to Draco was striking, they shared the same pointed nose and long face, really the only difference that could be seen between them was their eye color, her brown contrasted the pale blue of her sons.

“Narcissa, it’s been too long,” Clarke leaned forward to plant a light kiss on the older woman’s cheek.

The two engaged in a polite conversation about sixth year coursework, which Bellamy stayed silent during, offering the occasional supportive comment or smile when need be. When Narcissa excused herself, Clarke smiled politely, but as soon as she was out of earshot, the blonde turned and smacked his chest.

“What the hell was that?” She snapped.

“I was following instructions, you said to let you do all the talking,” he jeered back.

“Look, Blake, I know you hate me and don’t trust me in the slightest, but if you’re going to keep this shit up, do us both a favor and leave! I’m supposed to find out what Voldemort’s planning tonight so Dumbledore can pass a tip to the Order.”

“You got Dumbledore to trust you, I’ll give you that, but I don’t---”

“Trust me, I know!” Clarke finished, “if you want to get out of here alive, go to that corner table and keep sipping on your Polyjuice potion. Or so help me, Merlin, I’ll use the Imperius curse to make sure you do it!” Bellamy watched her right hand reach for her wand inside her handbag. The steel blue of her eyes showed no hesitation.

“Brave Princess,” he quipped, bowing slightly before retreating to the table.

* * *

* * *

Merlin, he was infuriating.

But with Bellamy out of the picture and moping in the corner, not only was he out of her, but he was doing exactly what Murphy would do at a party like this. Typical Murphy, typical Bellamy--acting like they were above it all.

Two hours later, Clarke wished she was doing her part as well as Bellamy was. The only conversation she had managed to pull from the attendees around her was concerned the decorations, Hogwarts’s curriculum, or which Unforgivable Curse was the most effective. She was down to her last resort, which involved approaching Bellatrix Lestrange and Fenrir Greyback.

“Here goes nothing,” she muttered.

“Bellatrix, Fenrir!” She called approaching the revolting pair.

When she met with silence, Clarke continued, “Have you seen my family’s collections of Dark Artifacts?”

The menacing gleam that sparked in Bellatrix’s eyes made Clarke regret having mentioned anything at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> also my mind keeps straying to writing a scrap about these two based off of percy jackson, so please comment what godly parents you think would fit the 100 characters best. i have some ideas in mind, but would really appreciate the help!


	4. brillant, but scary

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here i am again :) 
> 
> it's officially, i am fully back in harry potter phase. i found two excellent fics set in the marauder's era, they're both in my bookmarks and i highly recommend them. they're both beautifully written and get the angst btw james and lily perfectly. 
> 
> now for me:
> 
> \- I realized while I was writing this part that I have forgotten to include the Slug Club. I'll write it in going forward :)  
> \- I also know that I have yet to really develop Bellamy's character besides being the protective older brother and devoted hater of Clarke. I have plans to do so in the next part so stay tuned.
> 
> anyways, thank you so much for reading & please, please, please leave a comment about what you liked, didn't like, what was good/what needs improving
> 
> enjoy!

Bellamy had seen Clarke do some pretty idiotic things during the six years that he had been forced to know her. While he was sure that nothing could dethrone befriending Murphy from the number one slot, going to a dark secluded room with two convicted murderers easily knocked Murphy to the curb.

Following her to said dark secluded room knocked charming Raven’s hair pink in second year from his top slot. Dumbledore owed him big time for this. He kept a sizable distance between himself and Clarke, who looked as if she was trying to sell every relic that they passed. Bellatrix’s fingers kept thrilling on her wand absentmindedly, Dark Magic was the only thing that was capable of subduing her homicidal tendencies.

By the time that Clarke had stopped, the music from the ballroom was only a distant hum in the background.

He watched with careful eyes from his spot in the hallway, but, of course, Clarke had to close the door and he recognized the buzzing in his ears---now he really was useless.

Murphy’s signature look of disdain was easy to keep up, who liked going to these parties? Even if he went as himself, Bellamy was confident in the fact that he would still possess the same urge to throw himself down a flight of stairs. Then, just when it was starting to get bearable, Theodore Nott stumbled around the corner, drink in hand.

“Don’t see me, don’t see me.” Bellamy muttered under his breath, knowing he didn’t have enough time to cast a Disillusionment charm. Whatever luck he thought he still had went out the window as Theodore approached him.

“Murphy! Glad to see you!”

Bellamy nodded in response. What was it with Slytherins and not using first names?

To his dismay, Theodore leaned against the wall across from him.

“Do you have a drink?” He inquired.

“Not at the moment,” Bellamy said.

Theodore drew his wand and a pencil from his pocket, and with a simple wave transfigured the pencil into a crystal glass. He poured the rest of his drink into the glass before handing it to Bellamy.

“Griffin may be a bitch most of the time, but she does know how to throw one hell of a party.”

Now that was something Bellamy could agree with, “I’ll drink to that,” he agreed, raising his glass for a toast before downing its contents.

After refilling and draining his own glass, Nott continued, “It’s always so much easier to enjoy yourself when you don’t have to worry about Mudbloods and Half-bloods showing up and ruining it, you know?”

Theodore droned on and on about how there were researchers at the Ministry who were working on proving their theory on how Muggleborns and Half-bloods were genetically inferior to Pure-bloods; their proof being how magically stunted they were when they arrived at Hogwarts. Even though his fingers were itching to grab his wand and hex Nott’s hair to fall out, Bellamy had to remind himself that he was still Murphy. He bit down on his tongue inorder to keep his composure.

How vain could one person be? Of course the Muggleborns, and some half bloods, were going to be behind when they got to Hogwarts! It wasn’t their fault that they weren’t brought up in the wizarding world! Not everyone had the ability to be properly exposed and involved in magic before school started.

Then, Bellamy had a flashback to his very first potions lesson, where Snape interrogated Harry about the difference between wolfsbane and monkshood. At eleven years old, Bellamy had been bristling with anger, but also selfishly grateful that Potter had been Snape’s target, not him.

“Murphy!”

“Murphy!”

Oh, right.

Bellamy turned toward the voice, and for the very first time, he was happy to see Clarke walking towards him. She looked relieved, like the weight she had been shouldering was finally lifted off. Looking at her eyes, he saw the same old steel blue, but they were never this bright, residual vacillation swirled in the depths of her irises.

She looked happy, her smiling face and crinkled eyes glowed. “Nott, do you mind if I steal Murphy back?” Clarke asked sweetly.

Bellamy felt her apprehension in the way she looped her arm back through his, and pulled him away without waiting for an answer---like she had was doubting whatever decisions she had made behind the closed door.

* * *

* * *

“Are you going to tell me what happened or are we going to continue to sit here like a bunch of idiots?” Bellamy hissed across the table. He reached across the table for her clutch.

“Don’t touch my stuff!” Clarke swatted his hand away, “I’ve already told you, I gave Bellatrix a necklace and she hinted at what they were planning. I got enough information to report back to Dumbledore, plus if I talk to any more people here they’ll start thinking I’m one who is being impersonated tonight.”

“Dumbledore invited me on this, I think I deserve to know what Bellatrix told you.”

“As my escort! If my mother wasn’t an obsolete tyrannical asshat I wouldn’t have needed you at all!”

“You’ve made it abundantly clear that you don’t need me tonight, Clarke. Can you at least get me something to eat?”

“Ripley, come here please.”

Several awkward beats and a weird look from Bellamy later, Clarke felt her face flush red as she realized her mistake. She summoned Mobney and asked him to make Bellamy something fresh from the kitchen.

When Mobney returned with a plate piled high with delicacies, Bellamy immediately started eating, only taking breaks to wash the food down with pumpkin juice. Clarke dismissed Mobney’s questions about what she wanted and opted for a cup of tea. Her stomach was still doing summersaults; she would eat after this night was over.

“Attention please!” When her mother’s voice wasn’t acknowledged by the ball’s attendees, Clarke braced herself. “Attention!” Abby bellowed, the Sonorous charm amplifying her voice over the boisterous commotion; this time everyone ceased talking.

“Now, if you’ve had the opportunity of attending my family’s soniree, you know what I’m about to explain. If not, pain atte---”

“What is your mom talking about?” Bellamy whispered.

“---per tradition, each Sacred family in attendance will nominate one member for the annual duel. I’ll allow five minutes for each family to select their representative.”

Shit, Clarke had forgotten about this part.

* * *

* * *

  
After the most chaotic five minutes of his life, Bellamy was standing opposite Blaise Zabini. All the tables had been pushed aside to create enough space for a proper duel. Like every other student at Hogwarts, Bellamy had gotten the basic rundown of dueling second year in Defense Against the Dark Arts, and then last year, in the training he had done with the rest of Dumbledore’s Army, Potter had helped him refine his techniques.

Clarke had reiterated as many times as she could in the five minutes that they had to prepare that the dueling that happened at the ball was drastically different than what they had learned at school. Hogwarts focused on defensive spells, it was all about offense here. If he stayed on defense too long it would raise suspicions; though his technique was mediocre at best, Murphy was known for the precision of his hexes.

Classic cockroach.

Blaise was conceited, his spellwork proved it. All Bellamy had to do was out last him and then get in a final stunner to finish him off.

“Be the last.” Someone called from the crowd. That must have been some kind of commencement phrase because before Bellamy could ready himself Blaise’s knee locking curse hit straight in the chest.

* * *

* * *

Clarke watched helplessly as Bellamy stumbled back, struggling to stay on his feet since Blaise locked his knees. He was quick to fire back on defense and his spell choice was impressive, opting for more conservative spells while deflecting his opponent’s advances simultaneously. SHe hoped that she was the only one who recognized the fact that Bellamy wasn’t looking to draw blood in the way Blaise was.

“C’mon, John! Finish him off already!”

Murphy never made it too far in the duels, but he would have finished off Blaise by now. Granted his approach towards offensive tactics were more reckless than Bellamy’s, who wasn’t getting anywhere in the fight, which he wouldn’t do until he had the chance to unlock his knees. By the looks of it, he wouldn’t be getting that chance any time soon.

God, she shouldn’t do this, but what other choice did she have? Feigning a cough, Clarke raised her arm to cover her mouth, she then muttered the Knee-Locking countercurse under her breath.

Mummers of approval erupted among the crowd when they noticed that Bellamy had regained his footing. With his focus fully restored, Bellamy dodged another one of Blaise’s spells before disarming him. Blaise’s wand flew across the hall, landing only inches in front of Bellamy, who snatched it from the ground before it could be summoned back to him, but even though he was defenseless, Blaise didn’t yield.

He charged Bellamy, arms raised, desperate to prove his superiority. As soon as the dark-skinned boy was in arms length, Bellamy landed a punch straight to his nose, dropping Blaise to the ground. Bellamy advanced quickly, using his foot to turn Blaise to his stomach before moving it to his throat.

“Yield!” He commanded.

Although Blaise’s gaze was filled with rage, he obliged, tapping Bellamy’s foot twice. She wasn’t sure if Bellamy was fully cognizant of the bloodlust that had fueled Blaise during the duel. Regardless, Clarke noticed the way his hand clenched and unclenched by his side, Bellamy was fighting the urge to help Blaise up.

Admiration flooded her senses, as if a bucket of water had been poured over her head. Even in another’s body and surrounded by blood thirsty sociopaths, his iron will to help others remained untouched.

He returned to her side, Clarke congratulated him on his victory and though it was Murphy’s signature smirk that he gave back, she caught the tips of his ears flushing pink.

“Clarke Griffin and Pansy Parkinson.” Abby Griffin’s announcement of the pair silenced the crowd once again.

For the first time, he was looking at her with no hate in his eyes. This was the Bellamy Blake that everyone else knew; he was trustworthy, honorable, and stubborn to no end. She had no claim to this Bellamy, she didn’t deserve this Bellamy. Clarke smiled back, vainly hoping that his brown eyes would greet her with the same warmth after the duel.

* * *

* * *

Clarke had always been intimating, but watching her ready herself for the duel only one word came to Bellamy’s mind: scary.

Not a single emotion crossed her face, she remained impressively nonchalant about the whole thing. Bellamy would even go as far to say she looked bored. Pansy, on the other hand, was dripping with fury.

“Be the last.” Abby had barely rejoined the crowd before Pansy’s first spell came barrelling across the hall. Clarke kept her composure with ease, the shield she produced deflected the spell effortlessly.

The duel---like everything else--- happened on Clarke’s terms. The only ground that Pansy gained was that which Clarke allowed her to; it was just enough to keep everyone’s interests peaked. She had hit Pansy with a particularly gruesome Furnunculus hex. Bellamy grimaced at the boils that erupted on her face---that had to hurt.

Pansy attempted to continue the duel, but left untouched, the boils wreaked havoc on her skin. Only seconds later and she was unable to open her eyes. Clarke visibly relaxed when Pansy fell to the ground and yielded.

Out of the corner of his eye, Bellamy saw Abby stalking towards her daughter; Clarke tried to rejoin the crowd. Her mom got to her just in time and wrapped her fingers around her wrist. He couldn’t hear what she said. Whatever it was, Clarke ripped her arm from her mother’s grasp and slipped away.

Before Abby could follow her, a cacophony of agonized cries broke out. To his left, Bellamy caught a glimpse of the Dark Mark wriggling on the underside of Goyle’s left arm. Bellamy looked around the room, watching as a majority of the party’s attendees’ gazes dropped to their forearms and then promptly disapparated.

Only a handful of students remained after Voldemort’s followers had answered their Beloved’s call. Bellamy looked for Clarke among them and he wasn’t surprised when he was unsuccessful.

* * *

* * *

Where was Bellamy?

After ushering the remaining students from the manor, Clarke made her way back to the ballroom.

She had been pushed out of the room and lost sight of him in the commotion of the countless disapparitions. The polyjuice potion had worn off and he was back to looking like himself. He haphazardly cast spells as he stumbled the width of the room, a drink in one hand, his wand in the other. The different color sparks shattered plates and ricocheted off the walls. Clarke had to duck when one came particularly close to hitting her head.

“Watch it, will you?”

Bellamy barely acknowledged her presence, only casting her a sparing glance. “You’re back early. It must have been a quick meeting.”

Clarke rolled her eyes and tried to ignore the flare of anger in her chest. “Do you want to go home tonight, or wait until the morning?”

His teeth caught his bottom lip as he contemplated his answer. For the first time all night, Clarke got a full look at Bellamy.

The dress robes had been tailored for Murphy, whose lean build clashed with Bellamy’s muscular one. He had shed the robe, leaving his torso clad in the dark green silk dress shirt. Clarke most definitely didn’t notice the way the material was stretched tightly across his shoulders, or how he had rolled the sleeves to his elbows, highlighting the prominence of the veins in his arms.

He was devastatingly handsome, he always had been.

* * *

* * *

His mom was probably worried sick, and no doubt attempting to play it off for Octavia’s sake, who was waiting on an explanation. Bellamy wanted to go home more than anything, but as he thought about Clarke’s offer, he felt exhaustion replace the night’s anxiety.

“I’d rather be interrogated when I have enough energy to answer Octavia’s questions.”

Clarke nodded and motioned for him to follow her.

He tried not to, but the alcohol had lessened his resolve, letting his hormones get the best of him; his eyes trailed down the length of Clarke’s body as he walked behind her. He had never seen a single hair on her head out of place over the course of their time at school together. A plaited braid or hair pins normally kept it out of her face.

This was the first time Bellamy had seen her hair completely void of any hairstyle, it was falling past her shoulders in golden waves, calling attention to the back of her dress, or lack thereof. The dark green satin fit snugly around the front of her figure, wrapped around her body, before leaving the smooth skin of her back open, where a large silver serpent hung delicately from chains that were sewn onto the straps and sides of the dress.

Damn, she was devilishly attractive, admittedly, she always had been.

When they made it back to her room, Bellamy noticed that it was considerably tidier than it was before. Hermione would be furious at the number of house elves that the Griffin’s possessed. Without all the clothes, books, and parchment scattered around the floor, he was able to appreciate the architecture of the room. H

is eyes were immediately drawn to the ceiling, where the constellation of Orion was charmed to be, glinting over their heads. Though he was confident that the entirety of his apartment could have fit within the confines of Clarke’s room, all of Clarke’s furniture was crammed into the corner by the fireplace.

“With a room as big as yours, seems like a waste of space to cram everything in one spot.” He commented.

Clarke shrugged as she began to rummage through her dresser. “Would you want that staring at you twenty-four seven?”

He assumed she was referring to the oversized portrait of her mother that hung on the wall. Abigail Griffin looked especially intimidating in the painting, her brown eyes seemed to fixate on them. “Is it charmed to watch you or something?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if it was.”

“Does your mom know---”

“That I betrayed her precious hate group? Considering that I’m still breathing, I don’t think so.”

Bellamy’s mind had been whirling the whole night, attempting to take in as much of the information that he was being presented with. A small part of him still thought that this whole night was an elaborate dream.

She handed him a dark bundle of clothes. “You’re about the same size as Wells. If anything doesn’t fit feel free to charm it to size.”

* * *

* * *

Clarke had never had a boy other than Wells in her room, so having Bellamy Blake strip intrepidly right in front of her was an unprecedented experience. The taught skin of his chest and abdomen was just as tan as she thought it would be. She decided to fix her eyes on the rug, though she knew the obvious blush in her face gave her away.

“Need to take a breather, Griffin? You’re looking a little winded.”

“Shove off.”

She wasn’t a virgin.

In her grief, as a rebellious fourteen year old, Clarke had gone a little crazy; sleeping with Finn, a Hufflepuff in her year and then getting involved with Lexa, a sixth year from Beauxbatons, during the Triwizard Tournament. While she wouldn’t exactly call what she had either of them relationships, both had ended terribly. Finn hadn’t told her that he never officially broke up with his girlfriend Raven, who had arranged to spend the first half of the year studying abroad. Clarke had been ready to tell Finn she loved him when Raven had bombarded them the morning of the second task.

Then there was the mess that was her situationship with Lexa. Her long wavy brown hair, fair skin, and full lips had found their way into Clarke’s dreams after the welcoming dinner of the tournament. She was absolutely gorgeous and confirmed what Clarke had been questioning for awhile: her bisexuality. Finn had been great and made her feel really good, but where he had left her desiring more, Lexa had filled the gaps and then some in the way she had recklessly fought for her. She had been the first person Clarke had cried to about her dad.

While they had continued to see each other throughout the year, Lexa made sure that Clarke knew that they weren’t exclusive. Girls being with girls wasn’t something that was frowned upon at Hogwarts, but if her housemates found out that she was bisexual and had been fooling around with a muggleborn from the “ditzy Parisan school”? Clarke hadn’t wanted to think about that so she agreed to keep her meetings with Lexa a secret.

Still, that hadn’t made it hurt any less when she saw Lexa with other girls throughout the year. After having to watch Lexa make out with not one, not two, but five girls that weren’t her, Clarke had pulled the brunette aside; finally told her that she couldn’t do the whole open relationship thing anymore.

Lexa had merely shrugged at her ultimatum and chose the latter, the polyamrous lifestyle, which she had dedicated herself to. She claimed it was easier that way, never letting anyone too close or exposing herself to love’s precariousness. Why get hurt over something so fleeting?

Clarke had eventually come to agree with that last part.

* * *

* * *

“Am I chopped liver?” Bellamy found himself asking.

“No, you’re Bellamy Blake.”

“Well, are you gay?” He must have drank more than he thought, even with his friends Bellamy wasn’t this brazen.

Clarke emerged from behind the changing screen, confusion etched on her face. “Excuse me?”

“Cheers if you are, I don’t care, but I was curious because you’re the first girl who looked visibly uncomfortable with me being shirtless.”

“Contrary to popular belief, Blake, I don’t think that you’re God’s gift to the female population.”

Bellamy laughed at the princess’s sarcasm. Once he started, Bellamy couldn’t stop. He was well past delirious and fell back onto the bed. “Merlin has got to be laughing at us, hasn’t he? Two people who hate each other are forced together on Christmas, a day that’s supposed to be spent with your loved ones. C’mon, you have to find this ironic.”

“It’s not what I was expecting, but I’m sorry if Dumebledore’s plans infringed on your holiday with your family.” Clarke said sincerely, taking a hesitant seat on the foot of the bed.

He waved off her concerns. “I’m the one who agreed to them.”

“Why did you?”

Bellamy shrugged, “My headmaster needed help and my sister needed to see that her brother isn’t a selfish git.”

“Octavia doesn’t think you’re selfish.”

It was his turn to pose a question. “What?”

“Before Hogwarts, it was just the two of you. She was your top priority and now that you’re both at school, your priorities have shifted. Octavia’s having a hard time coming to terms with it.”

“I was a dick to her this past term. I don’t deserve you making me sound like a saint.” He mumbled.

Her weight lifted from the bed. Clarke probably did what Octavia couldn’t and left.

But then, the weight returned. This time, taking a place right next to him. “Bellamy, look at me please.”

When he didn’t move, Bellamy felt her hands wrap around his wrists and despite his protests, she pulled him up. “You’re human, flawed, and bound to let people down. You don’t deserve to be condemned for things that are out of your control.”

She kept her hands on his wrists; her thumbs rubbed circles on his skin.

“Watch yourself, princess, we hate each other, remember?” Of course he had to go say something.

“We do, don’t we?”

It was true. Hating each other was something that they each prided themselves on. Clarke Griffin had rubbed him the wrong way ever since he met on platform 9 ¾. That had to count for something; up until now it had.

* * *

* * *

“So, you’re not going to tell me what happened at the ball?”

“Murphy, for the last time, I already told you everything!” Clarke snapped, shutting the door to their compartment on the train. Well, just about everything, having left out the part about the almost kiss with Bellamy. She was having a hard time reconciling the situation herself.

“Clarke, I happen to be an excellent multitasker---he paused to throw a balled up piece of parchment at her---which means while I am an excellent best friend, I am also a gifted thief. Snape’s stock of Veritaserum isn’t as well guarded as he believes it to be. Though, I would prefer you to tell me now, with all the studying I neglected to do over break, I need to focus on catching up, not forcing you into telling the truth.”

Clarke threw the parchment back at him. “I didn’t miss you at all over break.”

Murphy dismissed her jab at him, “Griffin, you better spill right now or I’ll have you singing like a canary by breakfast tomorrow morning.”

“Alright, Bellamy and I almost kissed!

“That’s not your best joke, Griffin. I’m not laughing.”

“I’m not joking. It’s the truth.”

The smile slipped from Murphy’s lips, it was quickly replaced by anger. “You almost snogged Bellamy Blake? I shouldn’t have to recount all the times you’ve cried to me about him. The most recent? Oh yeah, he stole your last picture of your dad! Clarke, he’s a dick.”

“Murphy---”

“No, Clarke, I don’t want to hear it. You spent a scary night with him, I get that, but one night of chivalry shouldn’t erase the years of pain he’s put you through!” He shouted. Luckily, the surrounding compartments hadn’t been filled yet so their argument hadn't been susceptible to eavesdropping.

Clarke sighed and ran a hand through her hair.

He wasn’t always right, but when he was, John Murphy made a point of making sure it was known. With everything that had gone down that night, Clarke remembered desperately wanting a distraction, and for a brief moment---she had wanted Bellamy to be that distraction. The pair spent the first part of the train ride back to school not speaking, but when the trolley came, Clarke bought a handful of Chocolate Frogs and Murphy purchased two Cauldron Cakes.

They were fiercely protective of one another, Clarke couldn’t find it in herself to hold onto the lingering frustration in her chest. She had quickly learned when it came to Murphy, it didn’t matter. Besides Wells, he was the only family she had.

Wordlessly, they traded the treats and an apology.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so y'all have no idea how much i wanted bellamy and clarke to kiss in this chapter, but my number one pet peeve when it comes to enemies-to-lovers plot lines is that they kiss really early on and then become buddy buddy right after that. 
> 
> in my opinion, not nearly enough angst and pining as happened yet, i feel like i only just really established that this chapter. their dynamic for the next update will be very centered in the confusion that they are both feeling and then we'll go from there. 
> 
> one last thing: harry potter tiktok is thriving atm, but the amount of appriecation that my boy harry is getting? NEXT TO NONE. I SWEAR HARRY MIGHT BE THE MOST UNDERRATED MAIN CHARACTER OUT THERE. so if you're a creator on harry potter tiktok, pleaseeeeeee make some POVs that give harry the hype he deserves.


	5. i am what i am, i will not be ashamed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here i am again:) 
> 
> Y'ALL I SAW THAT THIS FIC MADE IT TO THE OFFICIAL FIRST ROUND OF VOTING FOR THE BELLARKE FANFICTION AWARDS??? IN THE BEST SPINOFF CATERGORY OR WHATEVER!!! YOU GUYS HAVE NO IDEA HOW MUCH THIS MEANS TO ME!
> 
> seriously guys, i am so thankful for your continued advice, feedback, and support. . .so if you could please go to tumblr and vote for me??? 
> 
> anyways, there's not much going on here. this is definitely a filler chapter with loads of background info. im working on developing the respective stances that bellamy and clarke took in the beginning of the show. to me, bellamy definitely dictated the dynamic of their relationship with his assumptions, etc, so that's what i'm trying to have calrke response to here. 
> 
> i got all the quidditch stuff from harry potter wiki and i when back through and reread the previous chapters and i realized that i totally ignored the whole 'not being able to apparate on school grounds', and the age for it too, i'm working on writing an solution for the next chapter. 
> 
> but, please enjoy this chapter, let me know your thoughts/opinions/what i could do better/what you liked, etc, :)

Assignments piled up after break, just like they always did, but Bellamy was having a difficult time disciplining himself to comply with his study schedule. His night with Clarke remained the front most thought in his brain, despite not even talking to her since they had returned to school.

Should he? He had no idea.

Luckily, he remembered a majority of the night this time so he didn't have to seek her out for answers. Bellamy knew exactly what happened, but this had done little to placate his restless thoughts. Besides, his friends would call him out on any move he made to talk to Clarke, he resented her existence before break, it shouldn’t have been this hard to return to his normal behavior.

He thought that he had done a decent job putting up a semblance of his usual attitude, but after the first week Miller had accosted him in the Common Room.

“What’s up with you? ” Miller had asked.

Bellamy didn’t know how to respond because physically, he was fine, brilliant actually, he had just done his best flying at Quidditch practice earlier that day. Academically, his grades were good, but the ninety-four percent he had received on his Herbology essay had probably tipped Miller off. Sprout had praised him on his thorough analysis of the dangers of cross breeding Fluxweed with other magical plants.

“Miller, I had loads of free time over break---”

“That’s a load of rubbish, you hate Herbology.”

A truer statement had never been said; Bellamy despised Herbology. He had only taken the NEWT level because McGonagall had recommended that it would look good on his transcripts to have a quorum of notable classes, if he still wished to be a professor. In the last year, there had been multiple times where he had done Neville’s Charms work in exchange for the Herbology answers.

For a moment, Bellamy considered telling Miller the truth, he was his best friend after all, but what would he tell him? That the girl he potentially fancied was the same one he had made a point of hating since he was eleven?

**f i r s t y e a r**

_Merlin, why wouldn’t this stupid feather float already? Bellamy couldn’t blame his lack of magical experience because just to his left, Hermione Granger had just successfully levitated her feather. He watched helplessly as it soared up, up, up before a gust of wind blew out of the window. Hermione articulated the pronunciation of the charm again to Ron, emphasizing the third instead of the fourth syllable._

_“Wingardium Leviosa!” He tried, pointing his wand at the feather again. It didn’t move._

_“Psst!” A wand poked his back once, twice, thrice before he turned around._

_Clarke Griffin was staring at him, a satisfied look on her face. “Bellamy, right?”_

_For a moment, Bellamy wondered how she knew his name._

_Unlike her, no reputation preceded him. The other first years had remained silent during his sorting, genuinely curious as to what house he would end up in. Conversely, boisterous whispers had erupted from every hall when Clarke had approached the Sorting Hat. That had been the first time he had heard the word, Death Eater, but he had denoted that it was something that his fellow housemates disparaged. The Sorting Hat hadn’t even needed to be fully set on her head, a few seconds hovering over her blonde hair was all it needed to declare her a Slytherin._

_The table downed in silver and green had cheered and chanted her name, while Bellamy noticed that the jeers and taunts were largely coming from his table. Squaring her shoulders, Clarke had sauntered proudly over to the Slytherin table._

_“No surprise there.” A redhead, who would be introduced to Bellamy later as Percy Weasley, scoffed in response. Noticing his confusion, he continued quietly, “Her mom is Abby Griffin, staunch blood purist and notoriously known for supporting You-Know-Who. She only attends purebloods at St. Mungo’s.”_

_The conversation had left Bellamy more confused than before, but he had understood the underlying theme of Percy’s explanation: Abby Griffin was a bad person._

_The students’ attention quickly shifted back towards when Neville Longbottom, tripped up the stairs after his name was called. Clarke and the rest of the Slytherin table broke out into a fit of laughter. He wasn’t surprised though; with a mom like that, Clarke couldn’t be much better._

_“The wand movement is supposed to be fluid. Your grip on your wand is too stiff.”_

_He scrunched his nose, “What do you know about casting spells? Been practicing to become a Death Eater?”_

_Clarke scoffed, “Don’t talk about things you don’t understand, Blake.”_

_“I could say the same to you, princess. I haven’t seen your feather float yet either.”_

_Flitwick happened to be walking past as the blonde drew her wand from her robes, the professor gasped and snatched Clarke’s wand from her hand. “Miss Griffin, are you aware of what this is?”_

_“Uh, a wand, sir?”_

_The older man chuckled, “It’s made with cypress and---”_

_“Unicorn hair.” Clarke finished._

_“A very special combination indeed. You’d do well to listen to Miss Griffin’s advice, Mr. Blake, a wand like that is very particular and only chooses the most capable to wield it.”_

_Bellamy bit the inside of his cheek and nodded. Flitwick lauding Clarke and her wand made him glance down feebly at his own, made from Rowan with a dragon heartstring. Clarke’s feather slowly inched its way off the desk; Bellamy felt his cheeks flame in embarrassment._

_“Next time, Blake, you’ll do better to respect your superiors.” Draco Malfoy sneered from beside Clarke._

_“Malfoy, isn’t it rather dangerous to use one’s entire vocabulary in one sentence?” A dark skinned boy named Nathan Miller chirped cooly. Bellamy turned to his right and gave a grateful smile in return._

_The wand chooses the wizard, but what did a twelve and half inch stick of wood say about him?_

* * *

* * *

Clarke pushed herself to go faster as she sprinted the last length of the Quidditch pitch. She had been on the field for the past hour and it was only now that the sun began to peak out of the tops of the mountains. While catching her breath, she closed her eyes and let the first rays of sunlight warm her face. Quidditch was her escape, something that allowed to her work through her emotions and never failed to put things in simple perspective.

Here she was just a Slytherin Chaser, training to get better for her next match. All that mattered was making the time split for the sprint circuit; she didn’t have to worry if the repercussions of her actions would prevent or end up being the catalyst that threw the wizarding world into a second war.

**t h i r d y e a r**

  
_Sabryn’s Steal was one of the hardest maneuvers in Quidditch, in this particular move, a Chaser flew under the opposing Chaser before surging up and stealing the quaffle from their opponents grip. Stealing was the easy part, the hard part was that the steal was required to happen in midair, throwing off the other team, which meant that the Chaser doing the move would have to jump off their broom, grab the quaffle while also successfully leaping over the player and their broom, and safely land back on their broom. After losing the House Cup her first year, and then not having a Quidditch final in her second year, Slytherin captain Marcus Flint was out for the Quidditch Cup and demanded that Clarke master Sabryn’s Steal, despite only professionals using it. In theory, it made sense; Clarke was the smallest and newest player on the team. The other houses wouldn’t expect such a move from a novice to the sport._

_Clarke had recruited Wells to help her practice. Arduous hours on the pitch, and spending countless mornings and nights on the pitch where the only light they had to practice under came from their charms, but finally January rolled around and Clarke had finally gotten the hang of Sabryn’s Steal. Granted, going into the match against Ravenclaw, she had only landed the move twice, but Flint was breathing down her neck. They needed this win to secure first place in the running for the Cup._

_The morning of the match, her nerves were at an all time high. She had even let Bellamy and Miller pitch bit after bit of caramel into her hair during Defense Against the Dark Arts. All she could think about and the only thing worth thinking about that day was the Sabryn Steal._

_Come two o’clock, Clarke stood aside her fellow Chasers, Graham Montague and Cassius Warrington, and she felt like she was going to throw up. She mounted her broom and kicked off her broom, letting the wind on her face distract her from the knots that her stomach was twisting into._

_Madam Hooch launched the quaffle into the air, Montague sprang forward and seized it before tossing it up to Clarke. She caught it with ease and took her position in their offensive formation. Whatever the Slytherin team had done in practice, it seemed like Ravenclaw had done it too, and then some. Every attack, formation, or secret maneuver they tried, their opponents had a perfect counter._

_“Griffin!” Miles Betchley hollered from the goalposts. He tossed the quaffle into the air and used the end of his broom to hit it across the pitch to her outstretched arms. Her fingers had barely closed around the quaffle before two of Ravenclaw chasers capitalized on her, utilizing Parkin’s Pincer and hemmed in her for the third chaser to fly directly at her, knocking both the quaffle from her hands and her body back._

_That was it, she had enough. Spinning on a dime, Clarke urged her broom to chase after them. She dove under the head chaser, who was oblivious to what she was about to do next. “Breathe, Clarke,” She murmured under her breath, placing her hands on the handle and drawing her legs underneath her. The base of her broom was sixth and half inches wide, barely providing enough space to balance on for more than a few seconds._

_Taking a final breath, Clarke stood up and propelled herself up, through the air, right under her opponent and stretched out her arm and punched the quaffle from underneath his arm. She had never landed the Steal with her eyes open, but Clarke pushed past her fear and kept her eyes open while she relocked her ankles around her broom. Her momentum carried her over the center of the broomstick, she tucked her body in, and finished the move with a barrel roll. Although the prodigious look of shock on the Ravenclaw chaser’s face was worth it, Clarke was confident that her surprise was greater._

_The collective astonishment from everyone in the pitch and stands had stalled the game long enough for Malfoy to catch the snitch. Slytherin won 170-150. The team dove towards the ground, and had their first group hug. It had ended as soon as it started and was also the last hug they would ever partake in together as a team._

_Clarke practically skipped out of the changing rooms, she wouldn’t wait for Wells to recount her successful completion of the Steal. She was confident that it was cooler than the real thing. “Now where in Merlin’s name did you learn the Sabryn Steal?” Clarke knew that voice anywhere._

_“Dad!” His laughter got cut off as Clarke launched herself into his arms, “You didn’t tell me you were coming,” she said stepping out of the hug, but keeping Jake’s arm around her shoulders._

_He chuckled, “I got some time off work and I wanted you to surprise, but it’s clear that you are the one that did the true surprising today. C’mon, mastering Sabryn’s Steal at thirteen? Kiddo, that’s unheard of.”_

_“I wouldn’t say mastered, I only landed it twice before today. Besides, Wells was a huge help, if he hadn’t helped me train I never could have---”_

_“Clarke, you don’t give yourself enough credit. The Steal is a ridiculously difficult and complex maneuver; there are professional flyers that couldn’t have pulled off what you did. Brag about it, you deserve to,” Jake said plainly, pressing a kiss to her forehead._

_“Speaking of Wells, did you see him at all on your way in or during the game? I haven’t seen him since yesterday at lunch.”_

_“Ask him yourself.” Jake nodded ahead, where a frazzled looking Wells was sprinting down the path to the pitch._

_When he got to them, Wells bent over and put his hands on his knees to catch his breath. “I-I missed the match, didn’t I?” He panted._

_“You did, but are you okay Wells? You don’t look right.” Clarke said. Well’s bronze and dark blue sweater was wrinkled and untucked---two characteristics that Wells had sworn off when he was nine. He looked equally exhausted and energetic with large bags underneath his eyes, which were way too wide and darting all over the place._

_He shrugged and ran a hand down his face, “I don’t know, I just woke up in the infirmary with a dry mouth and a killer headache fifteen minutes ago and barely remember anything after seeing you at lunch and then Bellamy asking something about the potions homework.”_

_Both Clarke and Jake’s faces drained of color. Abby Griffin was problematic no doubt, but her knowledge of potions and their varied side effects was unparalleled. Wells’s recollection matched up with the specific side effects of a very particular truth potion._

_“Dad, thank you for coming, and I’m sorry, but I have to go---”_

_“It’s alright, kiddo, go. I’ll help Wells back.” Jake gave Clarke’s shoulder a final squeeze before she took off towards the castle._

_Bellamy Blake didn’t see her hex coming, the Knee-Reversal hex knocking him off the courtyard bench he was sitting on and onto his side. He groaned in pain as the full effects of the spells set in, “Princess, as always, it’s nice to see you too.”_

_“I want to know what potion you gave to Wells.” She commanded, squatting down to his level._

_“Don’t hurt yourself there, Griffin. Yeah, you’re good with a wand, but you’re about as scary as a carnish pixie.”_

_“And you’re not exactly in a position to be making comments like that, Blake. Now, I’ll ask you one more time, what did you do to my best friend?”_

_“C’mon, Griffin, snakes are supposed to be cunning.”_

_“Fine, you snuck him Veritaserum and got him to spill the entirety of Slytherin’s Quidditch playbook. Going through Snape’s personal pantry and risking getting expelled all to sabotage the match? C’mon, Blake, I know lions are brave and everything, but this is a new level of stupidity, even for you.” Clarke tsked, poking Bellamy’s leg with her wand, eliciting another painful groan from him._

_“Tell McGonagall then, see if I care.”_

_“See I would, but then I’d be giving you exactly what you want, and where’s the fun in that? I don’t know what self-destruction kick you’re on right now, Blake, but it is quite fun to watch. So I’m actually not going to go to McGonagall, or maybe I will, but that’s for me to know and for you to find out. In the meantime, I will take the utmost pleasure in watching you squirm in anticipation of my decision.”_

“I reserved the pitch for seven o’clock.”

Shit, Clarke hadn’t even thought to bring her broom today.

“Sorry, I didn’t know. I’m finished anyway, it’s all yours.”

Clarke watched Raven carefully as she strapped on her gear; her eyes caught the way Raven’s knee buckled if she stood on it too long. She had made Ravenclaw’s team last year as a Beater, but Clarke didn’t remember her sustaining any major injuries.

“Do you need something, Griffin?” Raven quipped.

Clarke knew that she was close with Bellamy and Finn’s girlfriend---the one Finn didn’t tell her about in fourth year. She had tried to tell Raven about her cheating ass of a boyfriend, but she and Bellamy had shot her down as soon as she had approached their table. Ever since then, Raven had added on to Bellamy’s snide remarks so Clarke wasn’t sure if she would be open to her advice.

“Have you seen Madam Promfrey about your knee?”

“I didn’t get the limp from Qudditch. My mom was driving me to a friend’s over summer break second year and crashed. She didn’t tell me that she had been drinking and the airbag dislocated my knee. Since we didn’t have the money to see a proper doctor and I was underage, I waited it out and it never healed right.”

“But if it’s broken, why not fix it?”

“Fuck em, that’s why.” Raven smirked, "Malfoy, Pansy, Murphy . . .and you, the whole lot of Slytherin house really. Everyone who said I must have been daft to hurt my leg in the muggle world.”

Clarke began to walk off the pitch, “Right, well, I’ll leave you to it then."

“Just because you don’t say the slurs, doesn’t make you better than them, Clarke.” Raven called after her. When she stopped, Raven continued, “You benefit from the same blood biased hierarchy that those scumbags do and you’re entirely complacent about it. You never have to deal with someone questioning you about breaking the law if you score higher than a pureblood on an exam. There’s a whole world of privilege that muggleborns and half bloods will never come close to benefiting from!”

“You think I don’t know that?” Clarke said lowly, turning and starting towards Raven, “I’m sorry that some people are so fucking orthodox that they can’t admit a talented witch when they see one, regardless of their blood status. I’m privileged, I know that and my dad did too. He wrote and fought for legislation that would protect half bloods and muggleborns from pureblood persecution, and those scumbags that are in my house? Their fathers conspired with my mother to assassinate him for it. If they found out that I helped him, I would have died right alongside him.

“Let’s make a deal then, shall we? I won’t pretend to understand the world that you live and in exchange, you don’t make assumptions about mine.” Clarke had kept her voice level and icy, her eyes never leaving Raven’s.

She didn’t move or blink, she wouldn’t until Raven did. The brunette conceded moments later and mumbled something about forgetting about a morning study session for Arithmancy.

Clarke supposed she had one thing to thank her mother for, Abby Griffin certainly had passed down her gift for scaring teenage girls.

* * *

* * *

Bellamy had been close to falling asleep, head resting against his hand, in his Arithmancy lecture when Raven slid into the seat next to him. Her hand shot out and swiped his elbow off the table; still plagued with sleep, his head fell on the table.

“Not cool, Raven,” He grumbled, repositioning his elbow on the table before using it as a pillow.

“You haven’t been complaining about Clarke since we got back from winter holiday, why?”

And just like that, with a sudden influx of cortisol, Bellamy was awake. “I’ve had better things to do. School, Quidditch---”

“Bullshit, none of those things have ever stopped you before. What changed? Did you two fuck over break or something?”

* * *

* * *

It was Wednesday, which meant that the house elves had spent the day crafting what Clarke knew to be as the most perfect roast chicken in all of Britain. She had stopped by in the kitchens after her workout just to make sure. In her excitement about the meal, she paid no attention to the whispers that had begun among the other tables. Clarke took her usual seat next to Murphy at lunch and passed him a warm flask of peppermint tea that the house elves had insisted on making---knowing it was Murphy’s favorite. He barely spared it a glance before returning to his plate of chicken and roasted potatoes.

“Okay, what gives? You never go back on my Chocolate Frog apology.”

He shrugged, ”You told me nothing happened between you and Bellamy.”  
Clarke nodded, “Because nothing did, he fell asleep on my bed so I took the couch. That was that.”

“So he fall asleep after you had sex then?”

“Bloody hell, Murphy, when I told you we didn’t even kiss.”

“Really? Why did Octavia come up to me after third period and bagger me about you apparently shagging her brother over break? Which I found to be particularly interesting given the fact that you two were only together for that night---unless you’re lying to me about that too.”

“C’mon, you’re going to believe Octavia over your best friend?”

“No, I actually believe Bellamy over you.”

“Bellamy? What’s he got to do with this?”

Murphy chortled, “He’s got everything to do with this, given the fact he’s going around telling people you guys hooked up.”

She told Murphy she’d be back, before zeroing her eyes on the very raven curls she was looking for. The fucking nerve of Bellamy Blake, spreading lies about her just when she had begun to think he was decent.

“Slut.” Mandy Brocklehurst, a Ravenclaw, called out as Clarke neared Bellamy.

Clarke saw red by the time she got to Bellamy. “Can I have a word?” She said through gritted teeth.

Nathan Miller reached across the table and nudged him before he looked at her. Bellamy turned, goblet in hand, mouth full of pumpkin juice, which he choked on when he noticed the ire in her eyes. “Y-Yeah, course.” He stammered, swallowing and gathering the homework that he had spread in front of him.

“Whore.” Pansy Parkinson muttered under her breath as Clarke passed her. In her anger, Clarke missed the way Bellamy grip’s on the strap of his bookbag tightened.

The corridors were empty for the most part, a few students were scattered amongst the benches that were pushed up against the windows. Clarke chose the first empty classroom she saw, taking Bellamy’s hand and pulling him into it. He sat down on top of one of the desks, his long legs swung back and forth, and he leaned back on his hands carelessly.

“Are you going to say anything?” God, Clarke could barely look at him.

Bellamy startled at her outburst and stumbled over his response, “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

With a huff, Clarke slammed the classroom door closed and stalked over to where Bellamy was sitting, as soon as she was in an arms reach, she grabbed a fistful of his sweater and pulled so there were only inches between their faces. “Why the in Merlin loving fuck did you go around telling people that we slept together?”

“Raven knew something was up and asked if we hooked up over the holiday. I figured it would be the easiest thing for the both of us if I went along with it.” His tongue swiped across his bottom lip. Clarke’s gaze dropped to his mouth, realizing her mistake, Clarke shoved him away. Screw Bellamy and his perfect lips.

“Easiest for you sure, but, Bellamy, causal sex makes you a ladies man and brands me as a slut. Not to mention, I can’t afford to have any more eyes on me right now and people’ll be watching to see what happens between us now. I have to keep a low profile and lying about having sex with you doesn’t help,” Clarke said, pushing her hands through her hair.

“What if you didn’t have to lie?”

“Excuse me?” Clarke responded, baffled.

“You’re right about hookups drawing too much attention, but relationships don’t. We could pretend to date for a bit until things go back to normal. That way we’ll have an excuse to use if Dumbledore ever needs us to work together again.”

“Us? Dating? That would be about as normal as Potter going a year without his life being threatened.”

* * *

* * *

“Breath, princess.” Bellamy sighed and placed his hands on Clarke’s shoulders, but she pushed them off.

Clarke’s teeth latched onto her bottom lip as she mulled over his proposal. He wasn’t sure why he had offered the idea of a fake relationship up in the first place. He was intrigued by her, sure, but he still didn’t trust her. It was a win-win, he could keep an eye on her while she continued to help with whatever Order related missions Dumbledore had up his sleeve.

“Meet me in the Room Requirement at midnight tonight, bring the package that you stole from me before break, and then we can talk more about this.”

Bellamy nodded curtly before excusing himself from the room. He started on his way to Ancient Runes before remembering that he hadn’t seen the brown envelope since he had snagged it from Clarke. Besides, he was a few assignments ahead in Ancient Runes, missing one class wouldn’t be the end of the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> also, i am ignoring season seven. it isn't canon.
> 
> BUT CAN WE PLEASE TALK ABOUT JUILE AND THE PHANTOMS?!? BE ON THE LOOKOUT BECAUSE I AM MOST DEFINITELY POSTING SOMETHING ABOUT MY BABIES LUKE AND JULIE!!!


	6. a difference between two ways

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> man, i really let this fic get away from me guys. im sorry. i’ll be honest, my mental health hasn’t been the greatest the past few months, but working on this chapter the past few days really helped. i even got an outline for the next few chapters done!!! 
> 
> okay so some things to note:  
> 1\. this chapter is really dialogue heavy, which is something i don’t do a ton because i sometimes lose the flow of the chapter, but i think it turned out so that’s exciting  
> 2\. last chapter i got some clarke-raven interaction, here i got some murphy-bellamy confrontation going on. im going to incorporating everyone else going forward as i work to expand the story behind bellamy and clarke  
> 3\. currently, im uploading this on my phone after typing it on my school chromebook, which has blocked ao3—if you see this before i get back on a different device to format it, i apologize. 
> 
> with that being said, im sorry again, but i really do hope you guys enjoy this and that it lifts your spirits the way same it did mine:))) 
> 
> as always please, please, please leave a comment after you’re done reading—about anything really, i love them no matter what.

Clarke had Murphy and up until now, that had been enough, more than enough actually, but she had a very distinct feeling that he would not want to talk about her potentially hooking up with Bellamy Blake. This topic of conversation fell under what was to be normally discussed with one’s girl friends, so for obvious reasons, she was at a loss.

Even drowning herself in schoolwork and quidditch theory only did so much for her restless mind. Did Bellamy expect her to say yes? Did he expect anything to happen tonight? Did he want her to agree to his proposal? Did he want her to?

It was eleven thirty, realistically, Clarke should not have come back to the dormitory at all. Once she tucked in for the night, she rarely left, so she had to be discreet in leaving now, she couldn’t afford to have anymore eyes on her. She had long since changed out of her uniform, but couldn’t help feeling a tad insecure in her current attire. An old crewneck that had belonged to her dad and visibly worn Muggle sweatpants, which Wells had gifted to her for her birthday last year, and her hair braided back in its usual half-up-half-down style.

Clarke scoffed at herself in the mirror, she was acting foolish. This meeting with Bellamy was strictly business, an exchange. The picture of her father for an uninterrupted conversation. Simple, mind numbingly easy, and yet Clarke felt her heart slam against her ribcage the way it did before tests and Quidditch matches. Finally, equiting her nerves to standard apprehension, Clarke shouldered her bag and made her way to the common room.

Malfoy, Blaise, and Nott were in their usual chairs that they had positioned in the corner farthest away from the center of the room. The milky light that shone in from the Black Lake, illuminated the trio, giving off a somewhat sinister feeling. Clarke didn’t want to know what they were talking about. A group of fourth years were playing what had to be the quietest game of Gobstones she had ever seen, and the rest of her dorm mates were sprawled over the sofas by the fireplace.

Her momentary calm was replaced by anxiety tenfold more potent when she stepped out of the common room only to come face to face with Peeves the Poltergeist.

“Aren’t you supposed to be antagonizing first years?” Clarke hissed under her breath.

The ghost chuckled, “Normally, yes, but you see, they’re abiding by school rules and are sound asleep in their dormitories unlike a certain someone.”

“I didn’t feel well at dinner so I’m going to the kitchens for a snack.”

“Please, that’s a load of bullshit. You forget that us ghosts have an exceptional sense of hearing when we choose to utilize it and how could I not, when your arguments with Mr. Bellamy Blake are just so riveting! Really, you two do keep me on my toes!”

Did everyone keep tabs on her and Bellamy?

“I’m glad I can serve as a light in your dismal existence or post experience since you’re dead, but I’d rather get on my way before Snape comes this way.” Clarke took a deep breath and stepped through Peeves, shivering at the spine chilling cold that passed through her.

“Yes, Snape does usually patrol this corridor and you’re in luck, he just turned down the hall right before you stepped out. It would be a shame though, if something were to call him back per say.” Peeves floated up to one of the beams overhead and produced what looked like a large vase.

Clarke was sure her heart skipped several beats when he dangled it over the edge of the beam.

“Okay, what do you want?!” She asked exasperatedly.

Peeves sighed happily at her concession and tossed the vase between his hands, which should have been anatomically impossible because he lacked any corporal body parts. Clarke had far pressing matters at hand than asking questions pertaining to that.

His answer was uncharacteristically normal, “For you to do one favor for me. I can cash it at any time.”

“Done, well, as long as it doesn’t involve homicide or getting me expelled.”

“Excellent, now go. I’ll distract Snivellus.”

On a better day, Clarke would have asked for more details, she didn’t have the luxury of being too nosy at the moment. She had heard rumors of the map that Potter and his friends possessed, she would kill to know where the professors were at on their patrols, but she would have to settle for running from shadow to shadow.

It had been over two years since she had last called upon the Room of Requirement and her memory of doing so was clouded from her preoccupation with Finn. Clarke rolled back on her heels and ran through the options in her head---knocking obviously was out of the picture as was any unlocking or actual summoning charms.

_Take me to Bellamy._

Nothing.

_Take me to Bellamy, please._

It seemed the wall did not care about manners or pleseantaries.

“Try putting a little something into it, Griffin.”

Clarke jumped, “Geez, Peeves, announce yourself first, damn. Besides, it’s a wall, I don’t think it needs more than that.”

Peeves chuckled and floated down behind her. “It’s more than a wall. It’s the Room of Requirement for Merlin’s sake, it changes to every finder’s needs, awfully brash of you disregard its feelings!”

“It’s been two years since I “talked” to the wall, Peeves, if you have any ideas please share them.”

“I think I remember from last year when Longbottom found it that it’s fond of the number three.”

The ghost vanished before Clarke could ask any more questions.

She cracked her back and swung her arms side to side, if it worked for Qudditch, it had to work for emoting to walls. “Number three, okay, third time’s the charm, Clarke, c’mon you gotta mean it.” Clarke muttered under her breath. Placing her hand on the cool stone, she closed her eyes and thought of wavy raven hair, warm brown eyes, cinnamon, and strong hands until Bellamy Blake materialized in her mind.

Just as Clarke felt a hand wrap around her wrist, she felt her body move through something that reminded her oddly of jello and the bubble that Bellamy had encased her in before holiday break. She opened her eyes to be met with Bellamy laughing at her.

“God, you should have seen your face.”

Clarke shoved past him, making sure to jab her elbow into his stomach. With Finn, she hadn’t asked for specifics, just somewhere where the professors wouldn’t be able to find them. The room reminded her of the way that Slughorn had talked about decorating for his SlugClub Christmas party, she couldn’t go obviously because of the Sacred Sanctum ball. Long swaths of fabric hung from the chandelier and flowing down like a waterfall, Clarke made her way through them to the center of the room, where the fabric ceased to fall, was a four poster bed. It was definitely bigger than the ones in the dorms and was covered in feathers and throw pillows---what had Bellamy been thinking of when he called upon the room?

* * *

* * *

Bellamy surveyed the room, looking for the best way to strangle himself, he assumed that one of the scanes would work just fine.

He had thought his ask of the Room was very simple, a nice quiet place where he could talk to Clarke. This odd amount of fabric, which he found could change color, feathers, and a fucking bed made it look like he was implicitly asking Clarke to sleep with him. Okay, maybe that had been a thought that had surfaced a time or two at this point.

The Room of Requirement had been structured to say the least, Bellamy always knew what to expect when he attended the DA weekly meetings. Here, now with Clarke, surrounded by lavender, blue, and a scattering of black in the plethora of it all, he didn’t know what to expect.

Clarke leaned against one of the bed’s posters and let out a shaky breath. “Do you have the envelope?”

“Oh, right, yeah,” He reached into his back pocket and produced the envelope. “Sorry about the creases. It’s spent the better part of a month at the bottom of my luggage since before break.”

Clarke took it gingerly, which was surprisingly given how mad she had gotten when he had first taken it. Her hand was slow as if she expected him to snatch it away at the last second so Bellamy took the liberty of grabbing her other hand and closing it over the envelope.

He watched Clarke visibly relax as she drew the envelope into her chest, a small, borderline nonexistent smile played at the edge of her lips.

“Mind the possible intrusion here, but what’s in it?”

Clarke laughed, “I’m supposed to believe that you had this for almost a month after you stole it and you didn’t open it?”

“It didn’t have a seal so yeah I guess you’re just going to take my word for it.” He shrugged.

She looked up and met his gaze; while her face remained impassive, her blue demanded his brown for honesty. It was oddly scrutinizing, but Bellamy didn’t look away; instead he let Clarke continue with whatever this was, it was clear it was a test of sorts.

When she looked away, Bellamy hadn’t the slightest clue to whether or not he passed, but Clarke handed the envelope back to him.

“See for yourself.”

The envelope was no bigger than the standard size of a piece of parchment. Bellamy reached inside and carefully pulled out what was inside. It was small, barely bigger than his hand, he flipped it over to see Clarke smashing an egg on her father’s head---he didn’t have to guess about that part because they had the same eyes, a cerulean blue that swirled with mirth and mischief.

Abby wasn’t in the picture, though a part of him wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt he knew that she wasn’t the one taking the photo.

* * *

* * *

“Your dad works for the Ministry, right?”

There was no logical explanation as to why Bellamy would have known the details about her father’s death, but the oblivious sentiment in his question made her chest ache.

She had found over the years that half truths rolled off her tongue far better than any lie ever could. “Actually, he fine tunes brooms with The Comet Trading Company as what you’d call an engineer before he died.”

Picking up on the fact that it wasn’t her dad that she wanted to talk about, he laughed, “Aren’t you supposed to be oblivious to the workings of the muggle word?

“With my lineage, yes, but Wells has helped me learn a thing or two. Before he transferred and Jaha cut ties with my mom, we were planning a summer in Muggle London.”

Bellamy hummed in response, “That sounds like quite the Odyssey. He was in Ravenclaw wasn’t he?”

Clarke nodded. “Yeah, he was battling with Reyes for Ravenclaw’s top spot before he left.”

“What’s with the whole last name thing?” Bellamy asked, discarding the envelope on a table that definitely wasn’t there before and jumping past her onto the bed, “I noticed it at the ball.”

She shrugged, “Formalities, it was just the way we were raised.”

“You say that like it’s normal. I, for one, don’t treat my friends like they’re business associates.”

“I’m glad that we weren’t raised the same way. My business associates can be quite exhausting; if I ever have kids, I’m sure as hell expunging my mom from my life and taking a page out of whatever Muggle book she read,” Clarke eased herself back on the bed, close, but keeping several inches between her and Bellamy, “I would send one picture though, of my kid doing the most mundane thing possible, Merlin, that would be better than inheriting my grandparents stupid wealth.”

Clarke felt Bellamy turn and the weight of his eyes settling on her. His attention wasn’t cold like her mother’s cold and suffocating gaze, it wasn’t necessarily warm either, she couldn’t put it into words exactly, but it she imagined it was how Bellamy felt when he was with his family.

“Aren’t you an only child? Where would the money go if not to you?” Bellamy said.  
“I have no idea, knowing my mother she would have it be entirely liquidated if meant not passing down the family fortune to a worthless blood traitor.” Out of all things Clarke could do, she started laughing, which was probably the most inappropriate thing she could have done.

Bellamy began chuckling right along with her, “Yeah, money is a powerful thing, it’s a shame people let themselves get corrupted by it so easily.”

“Excuse me?”

“A lot of people do a lot of bad stuff and are able to use money to deflect any responsibility they might have had. It’s not right.”

“Bloody hell, Bellamy, just say “a lot of Slytherins” next time.” Clarke said sitting up.

“I’m working on that bit, alright---”

Clarke grabbed a pillow behind her and promptly hit Bellamy in the face with it; hard. “Well, try harder, Bellamy. I’m lucky. I had my dad and Wells to offset my mother’s influence and I’m still fucked up. Some of my housemates are asswipes, I know, but a lot of them haven’t been exposed to anything besides pure blood ideology and how to uphold a reputation, and with the rest of the school writing them off, they don’t have a ton of options to pick from the friend department.”

“You standing idly by, chatting with your friends, and doing nothing to help makes you just as complicit to whatever atrocities they commit in the future. We all have our biases, Bellamy, it’s time for you to get over yourself and yours.”

Clarke made sure to hit him again for good measure.

Bellamy promptly snatched the pillow out of her hands. “Now that we’ve established that I’m an insufferable dick, how about we get talking about you, huh?”

“M-Me? What about me?” Clarke sputtered.

“You’re not so innocent either. Admit it, since that day in Charms first year, you thought you were better than me; you still do!” He wound the pillow back and hit her on her side.

“What are you trying to get at, Blake?”

“Why don’t you try practicing what you preach for a change?”

Oh, so that was it.

“Let me get this straight, you think that I think that I’m better than you because you're a half-blood? Bellamy, the way I approach our rivalry has nothing to do with our respective blood statuses. I think my wand technique is better than yours because I have the motions memorized---you never fully finish your spells, which takes away from your power.”

He scoffed and moved to hit her again, this time going for her head. Clarke sat quickly and continued, “But, despite that, I also think that you’re a better dueler than I am. You move faster than me because you’re able to think faster than me and anticipate what’s going to happen next in a way I can’t. You’re going to be a real asset to the Order.”

This time when he hit her again it was with much less gusto.

“What are you going to do after school?” He asked.

“I haven’t given it much thought, depends on what happens this year.”

After school. Graduation. That was a year and a half away.. Honestly, Clarke wasn’t a hundred percent sure that she’d be alive in a year and a half; if her mom found out about her involvement with Dumbledore and the Order, she’d be dead in two seconds flat. Sure, she had thought about being an Auror, but she couldn’t focus on the future, especially when the present demanded every ounce of her attention.

* * *

* * *

Right, for a second there Bellamy had forgotten about Clarke’s mom.

“What was she like before? Your mom?”

He had seen a picture of Abby Griffin among Slughorn’s collection. She had been shouldered between Lily Evans and Cormac McLaggen’s dad; a tight lipped smile was all she had given the camera.

Clarke shrugged. “My grandparents were high up in You-Know-Who’s ranks and expected her to join them after graduation. She had already had the mark when she and my dad started going out, I guess her and some guy who went by RAB got it from the Dark Lord himself.”

 _RAB._ Bellamy felt he should know those initials. “Have you, uh, met him?”

“Voldemort? I haven’t, not yet anyway. He’s been hanging around the Malfoys since Lucius was sentenced. Though, I bet it’s coming sooner rather than later.”

Merlin, was Clarke really that fearless? To talk about the greatest wizard since Grimwauld with such conviction? Bellamy didn’t really give that only taboo thing that was apparently tied to Voldemort’s name that much thought; he supposed that if he fought in the war, he too stood his own chance of encountering the Dark Lord. A potential meeting amongst what would be a flurry of spells was nothing compared to the thought of coming home to Voldemort himself waiting in his living room sent a chill down his spine.

How they lapsed into a silence that wasn’t awkward, he didn’t know.

“Enough about that spineless twat, have you given any, uh, thought to my---”

Clarke held up a hand. “Geez, Bellamy, you’ve given me all of twelve hours to think about something that has the potential to kill me and I don’t have an answer for you? That’s some crazy stuff now, isn’t it?”

“Fair enough, but do you have any ideas as to how to pass the time until sunrise?” Bellamy measured the distance he leaned in, it was only a few inches, but enough where he had successfully passed the ball into her court---what happened next was up to her. Initially, he wasn’t sure if Clarke had noticed his advance because several beats passed and she did nothing, but then she took an inch, and another, and another until only mere centimeters separated them.

Her skin, unlike his, was free of any freckles or blemishes; if he were to be asked right then about his feelings toward Clarke, Bellamy wasn’t sure what his answer would be. Clarke was conventionally attractive, he’d admit that, but going off of looks alone, she was entirely ordinary.

Just another blonde-haired, blue eyed Slytherin with whom he quarreled with. Yet, the slight crook in her nose attested to the fact that she wasn’t like them at all and that difference was what perhaps intrigued Bellamy most.

It was then when she froze and Bellamy didn’t dare move, he knew that if they were ever to become more, it would have to happen on her terms.

Funny, how a distance could be so small and was still insurmountable at the same time.

“Would you fancy a game of chess?” Clarke whispered.

“Muggle or wizard?”

“I don’t have a preference.”

Bellamy laughed, running a hand through his hair. “And why’s that?”

Her response was simple. “As you’ll find, Mr. Blake, my ability to best you happens to transcend the limits of the magical world.”

“We’ll see about that won’t we, Princess?”

* * *

* * *

Six games of Muggle chess later, and they had barely moved from their starting positions. Bellamy on his knees, leaning over the bed, and Clarke was sprawled on her side, head resting in the palm of her hand. By courtesy of the Room of the Requirement, a large clock that had materialized on the nightstand sometime during game four, which had been around five in the morning.

An implicit agreement was made to pause their current game, yawning had overwhelmed them both.

Bellamy was ahead by two games, Clarke’s mind had long since fixated on that matter. She was immensely grateful for the fatigue that was clouding both their minds because he had yet to rub his victory in her face.

Breakfast was to end in thirty minutes and Clarke was still wearing her pajamas , she hadn’t thought to bring her uniform to change into. With no shame, Bellamy had already begun to strip down right in front of her.

“What’s next?” He called after her as she started toward the door.

“Good question.” She was all she called back because, frankly, she hadn’t the slightest clue as to what to do next.

_Wells,_   
_I have always understood the risks of writing to you while at school, but this couldn’t_ _wait until my next stay at the house. I hope that things are going better for you than they are for me. Before this arrangement, Hogwarts was my constant, but now with whatever you’d call my involvement with Bellamy, it’s joined the chaos that is the rest of my life._   
_Voldemort is hanging about the Malfoy’s right now, but it’s only a matter of time before he turns to my mother---and sets his eyes on me. I haven’t talked with Dumbledore about what I am to do if that happens, but I am no Gryffindor. At my core, ambition is what drives me, not bravery._   
_We both know that members of the inner circle weren’t reprieved._   
_You’re better than me, in every way imaginable, Wells, so tell me, what would you do in my position?_   
_Because right now, every fiber of my body is screaming at me to run and that is not an option. Too many lives are on the line already. God, I wish I could see you._   
_Until our summer in London---I love you. Stay safe._   
_Yours,_   
_Clarke_

* * *

* * *

Bellamy found the normal disparaging walk to his block of potions to just a walk for once. He was convinced no one could make him feel any different about potions, not even Clarke, no matter how enticing she was.

It was easier than he thought it would have been, pretending that is. His expression remained impassive when he noticed that Clarke had somehow made it to class before he did. Huddled with Murphy at their usual brewing station in the back of the room, she didn’t even glance up when the door shut behind him.

Slughorn had written the day’s assignment on the board in his swirling calligraphy; they were to brew four different potions, starting with the Everlasting Elixir and finishing with the Scintillation Solution. The catch was that they had to transfigure their potion into what the next would require as a proper base while also figuring out what two middle potions would allow for the successful brew of the Scintillation Solution.

He and Miller figured out the Everlasting Elixir on pace with the rest of the class, but they both shared a knowing look that they would not be progressing past the first task. Instead, they passed the time by trying to match the color of their potion to Slughorn’s tie, who's vibrant shade of chartreuse was surprisingly difficult to replicate.

“So, Hogsmeade, Saturday after Apparition lessons? How about it?” Miller asked as he tossed in a sopophorous bean. They both cursed when the brew’s color still refused to go lighter.

“For sure, I’ll write ahead to Madam Rosemerta about our plans.”

Miller quirked a brow, “Why’s that?”

“Dude, you’re the worst drunk out there. You drain her stock dry and then refuse anything that comes from a wand and not a bottle.”

“Okay, so that happened once---”

“Four times, actually, if you’re going for specifics.”

“Shove off, I’m just trying to fit myself in my best friend’s schedule that has gotten weirdly complicated.”

Bellamy opened his mouth, ready to refute, but Miller laughed and pressed on. “I didn’t mean for that to come out the way it did. This is my crappy way of telling you, I miss you, Bellamy. We all do and we’ve done our best to give you space because of everything that is going on with Octavia and whatever you got yourself strung up in with Griffin.”

He supposed they were right, but it wasn’t like he didn’t want to tell them---it was the exact opposite. Bellamy wanted to tell them so bad that he was afraid if he hung around them for too long that he would slip up. That sentiment had manifested itself in the form of longer nights at the library and taking his meals at the very beginning of the allotted times so he wouldn’t run into his friends.

“I didn’t mean to distance myself from you guys, you know that right?” He said, twisting the fingers of his left hand in his right nervously.

Miller clapped Bellamy on his back. “C’mon, you’ve got to give us some credit. We’re your best friends, mate. We’ve known your coping mechanisms are jack shit for years.”

“Yeah, yeah, I've been acting like a swot. Point made, so what time were you getting dinner then?”

* * *

* * *

Murphy had loosened his stool just enough so he was able to twist it whenever he moved from side to side, which was what he had been doing for the past thirty while Clarke triple checked every step of the assignment.

He finally let out a low groan and pushed off of the table, sending him into a full rotation on his stool. “Alright, so are we going to sit here and pretend like you can’t do this potion sequence with your eyes closed for the entire class period or are you going to get off your high horse and tell me what’s going on?”

Murphy had always been known for his brutal honesty, but the unnerving accuracy in his deduction had led Clarke to the conclusion that in most high profile cases, the overseeing officials would be better off to call in Murphy rather than use Veritaserum. He could detect someone’s tell before they had even introduced themselves.

“Do we have to have this out here?” Clarke asked across their station.

“Dumb questions, get stupid answers, Rapunzel. Either you spill or that potion does.”

The assignment was just practice for their upcoming practicum so if he were to eviscerate the potion, it wouldn’t count against them so for a moment she debated not telling him. Dumbledore had advised her against it numerous times, but Murphy already knew most of what happened, what was a few extra details?

“I met Bellamy in the Room of Requirement last night.”

“Funny, now tell me the truth.”

“Just did.”

Murphy’s leg shot out from underneath the table and kicked Clarke’s stool out from under her, sending her toppling to the floor. He shouldered his bag hastily and stepped over her on his way out of the room. The commotion was loud enough to catch the attention of the rest of the class.

Even utterly humiliated with dusted pink cheeks, Clarke kept her composure. Luckily, the class was a smattering of about eleven other students---it could have been worse---she had dealt with worse in front of larger crowds.  
  


* * *

* * *

Bellamy had known Murphy was, to put it shortly, an ass; one had to be if they chose Clarke Griffin as a friend, be able to counter whatever she dished out. He had also witnessed the aftermath of their fights over the years, it was particularly obvious when the pair was on bad terms---both stuck out like a sore thumb without the other.

Clarke looked rattled and when she got up to fetch an extra ingredient from the cupboard, he found himself getting up too. Thankfully, Miller was still in the bathroom.

“What was that about?”

“A disagreement.” The blonde answered as she compared the labels on two viles.

“About?”

“I’ll give you one guess.”

Bellamy reached for a vile of his own. “Murphy got pissed about the meet up?”

She put the vile of what Bellamy guessed to be valerian root and took the one of knox weed for herself. “Please, we both know it’s _who_ I was meeting that got him pissed.”

Twenty minutes and a locator spell later, Bellamy was staring at John Murphy from across the library. He was sitting at one of the bigger tables that was positioned in the center of the room alone. No one had bothered to sit at any of the surrounding tables, evident by the fact that the tables that were pressed up against the walls were overcrowded. Their occupants were first and second year Hufflepuffs who were no doubt whispering about the enigmatic Slytherin that sat before them.

Bellamy took a chair at the table to Murphy’s right.

“Rapunzel’s prince came to save the day, huh?” He spat.

“You kicked Clarke off her chair today. I want to know why.”

Murphy reached into his bag and produced a bottle of water, taking a long drink before answering. “I don’t think my reasons for doing so extend to you, Blake.”

“If you’re mad at me, take it out on me, dude. Clarke doesn’t deserve to have the downfalls of your cowardice be taken out on her.” It was simple, Bellamy couldn’t see why Murphy didn’t get that?

“Don’t flatter yourself, me kicking Clarke off her chair has nothing to do with you and has everything to do with how much of an idiot my best friend is being right now.”

“Ah, there’s that cowardice acting again. Tell me, Murphy, what’s it like to be ruled by such a void superiority complex.”

“It has its perks, though I’d bet it’s nothing like being surrendered to something as weak as impulsivity, but bleeding hearts tend to have that effect, don’t they?”

Bellamy bit back his retort; in his pockets, he began twisting old candy wrappers his fingers. With every twist, the wrappers grew thinner and thinner, until they eventually became too small and fell out of his grasp.

“I’m not exactly in the mood for company at the moment so what I’m about to tell you, I will only say once,” Murphy waited for him to look up before continuing, he stared blankly at Bellamy for a beat before continuing, “I don’t like you. Admittedly, I couldn’t give two fucks about you or the Order because Voldemort doesn’t. I don’t say that to sound like some cultist, I say it because I don’t like entertaining pipe dreams. It’s not going to be some slew of elaborate plans or a perfectly planned raid that is going to win this war---it’s going to come down to one person whether that be you, Potter, or Dumbledore himself, I don’t care, but hear this and hear it well: It is not going to be Clarke who dies. At the end of all of this, I will walk away with my family and right now, that starts and ends with Clarke.

If it wasn’t for my jackass of a father, we wouldn’t even having this conversation because I would have been able to escort Clarke to that stupid dance, but I couldn’t, which brings us to now, where she has the eyes of the both sides staring down at her, waiting for her to slip up. Maybe it’s because you’re attractive, smart, or hell, you actually have a decent personality that has her acting like a bloody idiot, whatever it is, whatever this is that the two of you have going on, it is not worth Clarke risking her life for it.”

During that whole speech, Murphy hadn’t blinked once, in fact his dead stare was still pressing into Bellamy.

“What if it is worth it?” Bellamy muttered, “what if it’s worth everything?”

“Then, whatever you do, you’ve got to mean it and make peace with whatever you might stand to lose when you get her.”

Murphy stood and leaned down to Bellamy’s ear. “If she gets hurt protecting you or the gits you call friends, I promise you that I’ll do a whole hell of a lot worse than kicking your chair out from under you.”

Bellamy stayed in the library long after the last person had left for the morning break and later, he met up with Miller, Raven, and Monty for lunch and then dinner after classes had finished. Murphy’s ultimatum plagued his mind all night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have also been thinking about starting a series of blurbs/one-shots of my and y’all’s favorite ships based off mine and y’all’s favorite tswift songs. 
> 
> if any combos just came to mind, leave them below!!!


	7. understanding is the first step to acceptance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im back. i told y’all i had an outline:)
> 
> there’s not much to note for this chapter, it’s a really just a filler with a bunch of foreshadowing (hehe). 
> 
> i did try to include more POVs, which led the story to be kinda jumpy in some points but i think it turned out good. 
> 
> guys, your support, kudos, and comments have yet to fail. i can’t stop smiling whenever i get them. please keep them up!!! i swear they’re the reason this is my second update within two weeks. y’all know i struggle w updating regularly. 
> 
> so enjoy!! and leave your thoughts, opinions, and predictions in the comments please!!! 
> 
> love y’all, till next time:) 
> 
> (which i think will be sooner rather than later)

Murphy didn’t go to lunch. A stomach twisted with guilt didn’t do much for his appetite. He sought out his professors for the work that he had missed, McGonagall for Transfiguration, Vector for Arithmancy, and Blabbing for Ancient Runes. Tuesdays were his heaviest day in terms of coursework---thanks to Clarke. 

She had been the one to push him through a rigorous study regime for the OWLS last year. It was better to have the option to take the NEWT level courses than be forced to fill his last two years with otherwise meaningless coursework. Passing these classes with good marks and exam scores was the ticket to getting out of his house. 

He had turned sixteen over the summer, not that his father noticed, but he had begun to look into the costs of apartments in both Muggle London and Diagon Alley, they weren’t cheap. The Murphys had been and were still a part of the Sacred Thirty; the purity of their blood had afforded them luxuries that they didn’t otherwise deserve. Especially his dad, who had been convicted of several felonies and crimes, but had enough connections within the wizarding community to make witnesses or the sentence itself disappear. 

The Minister had liked his family, even attended dinner at the house a couple times, his dad and Fudge were close friends at Hogwarts. When Murphy’s mom snuck extra medication from St. Mungos for a patient in desperate need of it, his dad had been the one to bring it to Fudge because the patient in question was a Muggle. Apparently, no one, not even his wife was safe from his purist ideologies. 

He had been asked to testify in his mother’s trial; the questions ranged from how her temperamente was to had she ever demonstrated ulterior motives at home. At the ripe age of ten, Murphy hadn’t been able to answer all of the questions---maybe if he had, his mom would still be alive today. In the end, Helena Murphy had been floated, an execution that his dad had to coerce the overseeing judge into. Floating was a death reserved for the most heinous crimes, stealing medicine hardly an equivalent to a guiltless murder. 

There hadn’t even been a funeral. To this day, his dad hadn’t even said his wife’s name once whenever Murphy alluded to it or his dad thought he did, he undid his belt; a time later, he would be left on the floor writhing in pain while his dad opened a bottle of two malt whiskey.

So yeah, his relationship with his dad was shit. It was the reason for the slight lip in his gate, why he flinched when approached from the back, and why Bellamy fucking Blake escorted Clarke to the Sacred Sanctum Ball. 

Bellamy Blake who hadn’t given a shit about her until last month. He knew that many probably thought his anger towards the whole situation came from a place of jealousy, that he was in love with Clarke. The idea made him laugh, that wasn’t even something he had entertained. 

There was no point to even consider a narrative where he and Clarke were more than best friends---not that he wanted to. They were each other’s only real family and they had long since agreed that love,  _ that _ love, was futile and fickle, and it just wasn’t worth it. 

He did lose his temper in Potions, kicking the stool was something that his dad had done to him before. Murphy was ashamed that he had resorted to it as an expression for his anger, but he was also prideful. The day had consisted of him groveling in self pity, tomorrow (or tonight if he could find her), he would apologize. 

For once, he had a slight idea of what he wanted to write about for his Ancient Runes essay. Unfortunately, Madam Pince had informed him that the book he was after had been checked out by another student, one who Murphy had gone to lengths to avoid during his time at school. Raven Reyes currently possessed the one thing that would save this paper.

She was the one with the fucked up knee; he remembered that much because he had definitely contributed in a conversation or two or several that had centered on laughing about that. Maybe, he had said similar comments to her face. It had been quite fun, relishing in how easily he wound her up. All the times he had made her flush, groan, or purse her lips in anger he considered it a win. 

Finally, the Ravenclaw emerged from the dining hall, who stayed almost thirty minutes after they had finished eating?

“Reyes!” He called after her. 

Hearing her name, Raven turned and upon realizing it was him who had called her, her face twisted in disgust. ”The fuck do you want, Murphy?” 

Currently, he was up 51-4 (yes, there had been times where she had gotten to him too). Those extra forty-seven points were really going against him here. 

“A book for my Ancient Runes paper. Advanced Ancient Runes Translations, Pince said you had it.” 

“It sounds familiar, yeah, but I checked it out for the same reason you did.”

“I got that much, Reyes, but I’ll go out on a limb here and say that you already have the essay done because Pince said you’ve had the book for some time now, which if that’s true---I’d be more than happy to take it off your hands.” 

“Fine,” Raven paused while she grabbed the book from her bag, “But, if I give you this, what are you offering in return?” 

“Scandalous, hot sex.” 

“E-Excuse me?” Clearly, she wasn’t expecting that answer.

“That’s my offer, which I think is more than enough considering the circumstances.” 

Raven was waiting for him to crack, look away, smile, smirk, something other than the simple bored stare he was giving her right now. That wasn’t going to happen.

“Newsflash, dipshit, I have a boyfriend. Miles Shaw.”

He leaned closer. “Huh, that’s interesting considering your immediate reaction to my offer. You can be honest with me, Reyes, how’s he in bed? Admittedly, I haven’t heard the best reviews.” 

She shoved the book into his chest, successfully reestablishing a proper distance between them. “New deal, the book for you never talking to me again.”

“Done,” he agreed with a grin, “but, I’m a generous man, Reyes, so if you’re in the mood for, well, more than what Shaw has to offer you---my offer still stands.” 

Murphy winked and turned on his heel, leaving Raven in the wake of her frustration. He’d wait to let her come to the realization about just what kind of frustration she was feeling. 

After all, everything in moderation and spoiling the truth could only be fun so many times. 

* * *

* * *

Clarke was surprised to see Murphy return to the Common Room in such high spirits and with a book in hand nonetheless. He came and sat in the armchair next to her, she didn’t miss the ghost of a smile that still played on his lips. 

“Who were you out terrorizing this time?”

“Reyes.” 

Clarke was thankfully she had finished her tea because choking on air was bad enough. “How’d that come about?” 

Murphy shrugged and held a copy of Advanced Ancient Runes Translations. “I needed this for Blabbing’s essay.” 

“Still, she isn’t a huge fan of us, especially you for that matter.” 

“That maybe so, but my offer of scandalous sex was enough to catch her off guard.” 

She reached across the space between them and shoved his head to the side. “You’re the worst, you know that?” 

He nodded solemnly, “Yeah, I know, which brings us to that stunt I pulled in potions today. That wasn’t cool of me to lose my temper like that. I’m sorry.” 

A burst of warmth spread through her chest. True apologies from Murphy or any of her housemates were hard to come by because with apologies came vulnerability, which was just another weakness to be exploited. Well, that was what they had been told growing up at least. 

“I should have truly validated that and honored your feelings. There’s truth in your anger, Murphy.” 

“There you go absolving me again.” 

“Okay, fine, Murphy, you’re actually the worst scum to walk this earth. Is that better?”

It was then Murphy’s turn to reach across, he did so and pinched Clarke’s cheek mockingly. “Not at all, but I find it cute that you can’t patronize me like the others.” 

She batted his hand away with a laugh, thankful that he didn’t press about the way she had flinched when he had reached for her. 

They settled into a comfortable silence as Clarke returned to her homework and Murphy began leafing through his book; the rest of the Common Room soon joined them as the noise in the room lulled. Watching a third year compile the materials from around the room to give a first year a hands-on-example of the effects of transfiguring an object. This was the Slytherin that she wished the rest of the school would allow themselves to see, how that ambition and resourcefulness were far more admirable than what they had been made out to be. 

* * *

* * *

Bellamy found that he had really missed friends more than he had let himself admit. Laying across the sofa in the Gryffindor Common Room, his legs were sprawled across Miller’s lap. They had been passing a bottle of firewhiskey between them and discussing the details of Saturday’s hangout, that was until Bryan sauntered over. 

He had no qualms about Miller and Bryan’s relationship, but when their kiss had turned into rather an aggressive makeout, he took that as a cue to leave. Plucking the bottle from Miller’s free hand and found an empty seat across the room where had coincidentally left his copy of the Iliad the night before. A few minutes passed, before he became aware of a certain pair of eyes on him, raising his eyes from the book, he met Gina Martin’s gaze. 

For a moment, he felt himself go back to third year when he had kissed her on a dare; the firewhiskey coursing through his body heightened his curiosity about what it would be like to kiss her now. Luckily, Gina crossed the room and came behind his chair and lazily drew a finger down his chest. 

“You’re thinking about me, huh?” She whispered in his ear, bringing her finger back up his chest before settling her hand in his hair. Bellamy would be lying through his teeth if he said that didn’t feel amazing.

“Maybe.” 

“Well, that’s an awfully flattering image of me that you’ve concocted in your head there. You’re missing the birthmark that I have on my right hip, though I agree with you---I look fantastic in red.” 

That description was far too accurate to be just a conjecture, Bellamy acknowledged that thought briefly before he allowed himself to fully lean into Gina’s hand. “I can’t go into your dorm, but there’s nothing keeping you from mine. Or my bed.” 

She hummed, “What about Miller and your other roommates?”

“You see, I happened to ace Flitwick’s unit on concealment charms, both visual and auditory.” 

So he ended up forgetting his copy of the Iliad in the Common Room for a second night in a row. He’d later learn that his concealment charms had worn off by the time Miller had retired to their room and that he had been the reason they had woken up with an extra blanket draped over them---for obvious reasons. 

Even with the extra blanket, Gina didn’t use it to cover up in the morning. They were the only ones in the room, but Bellamy admired her shameless confidence nonetheless. 

He pressed another kiss to her shoulder as he sat up. “How’d you see into my head, I meant to ask last night.” 

“The perks of being a Legilimenus.” 

Bellamy leapt out of bed, wrapping the sheet around his waist. “Okay, you need to go.” With her ability to see into his head and read his every emotion, Gina could have found out about his involvement with Clarke and Dumbledore. Two things he was supposed to be keeping quiet. 

“Relax, Bellamy, I have gone through enough training to block it out, the ability is only open to me if I chose to use it; I’m in control.” She took her time getting dressed, throwing Bellamy his clothes as she went. 

When she was done, she turned to Bellamy and took in his disheveled state with a chuckle, “I’ll answer your questions over breakfast, get dressed.” 

Breakfast was oatmeal, berries, bacon, eggs, and his favorite sausage, if he wasn’t on such an edge, his plate would have been overflowing with food. Gina noticed this and filled it for him. “I was born with a greater aptitude for Legilimency than most. Reading minds comes naturally to me, to the point where when I was younger I didn’t realize that most of the stuff I was hearing wasn’t even being spoken aloud. My parents taught me how to tone it out; now it’s just a faint buzzing most days.” 

“Still, you looked into my head without my permission.” Bellamy countered through a mouthful of food. 

“Bellamy, you wanted me last night, your mind reached me.”

He swallowed, yeah that part was true. 

“I swear that’s all I did, Bellamy.” She reached across the table and gave his hand a squeeze. 

He pulled his hand into his lap, “I’m supposed to trust you on that?” 

“I would, not trusting anyone seems lonely and anxiety inducing.” 

“I trust people.”

“Miller, Raven, Monty and Jasper, yes, I know, but still. Always assuming the worst of people, not giving anyone else a chance, you seem pretty determined to protect yourself.” 

“Where’s the harm in that?” 

Gina laughed and took a bite of eggs. Bellamy hated the way she was prying him apart so easily. “There isn’t, but my mom’s Swedish and she raised me on this proverb that says something along the lines of, with friends sorrows are halved and joys are doubled. I see you with your friends, everyone does; you work tirelessly to double their joys and half their sorrows. It’s admirable, but unless you put that same effort into taking care of yourself, it’s not maintainable.” 

“Thanks for the prognosis, Dr. Martin.” Bellamy grumbled into his breakfast. 

“I like you, Bellamy, I don’t expect anything serious nor do I want anything like that right now. So, let me know if you want to do this again.” She gave him one last smile and then scooted down the bench to join Lavender and Pavarti.

With the newfound information he had just been given, he knew damn well that Gina could not only feel his gaze, but his mind concentrating on her. A flash of blonde caught his eye and shifted his attention away from Gina. 

It was Malfoy this time, not Clarke, looking paler and more sickly than ever. His uniform was intact, neat tie and a freshly pressed set of robes, which made the decline in his health all that more apparent. He and Clarke could pass for siblings, the thought scratched a vague memory of learning that her dad and his mom were cousins or something. 

Per usual, he was flanked by Blaise and Goyle and all three worn smug, yet somber expressions. Nothing that Bellamy had seen from them or any Slytherin for that matter. He found himself wondering why and cursed Clarke under his breath. 

* * *

* * *

Bellamy was sitting with Gina Martin. He had walked in with her too. These were two that Murphy had made sure to point out when they got to the Great Hall for breakfast. Clarke busied herself in her book of Qudditch theory and maneuvers to pass the time, putting up a pretense that she didn’t care who Bellamy spent his time with. 

Self reassurances be damned—that shit didn’t work as well as it used to. 

“Murphy?” She asked, flipping the page. 

He hummed in response, not looking up from his own textbook. 

“If I asked you to jam this fork—“

“Yes.”

“You didn’t even let me finish.”

“Didn’t have to. No way, I am passing up a chance to stab someone with a fork.”

“Even if that person was me?”

“Especially if that person was you.” 

The two then began working out their schedule for the rest of the week. They both only had two classes on Wednesdays, Herbology and Charms, with two study blocks and Quidditch practices were now three hours because of their impending match against Ravenclaw the coming Saturday. Murphy insisted on writing on a piece of parchment for two reasons, they were both far too busy to remember all of this and Clarke’s handwriting was atrocious. 

Quidditch practices had been longer and tougher ever since their fight with Krabb and Goyle. Clarke had heard the rumors about the possibility of her and Murphy getting kicked off the team, but that would never happen. They were too valuable to the team and were responsible for over half of the team’s points both this season and last. To kick them off would mean handing over the Quidditch cup to Gryffindor without a fight. 

The clocktower then rang off eight chimes, signaling that the students were supposed to start on their way to the first class of the day. 

Clarke was good at Herbology, plant’s medicinal properties and uses was and still remained the only topic of conversation that she could engage in with her mom. Copies of Goshawk’s Guide to Herbology were waiting for them on the table tops in the greenhouse, reaching their usual spot towards the back, Murphy reached for the textbook in front of him. His finger had only brushed the cover before he abruptly pulled it back. 

“The damn thing burned me. Fucking hell.” He hissed sucking on his finger lightly. Similar reactions erupted across the room as the book singed the hands of the other students. Sprout emerged from the back room amidst the noise, seemingly pleased with the results of her charm. 

“Professor, what the hell is this?” Murphy shouted, for once his interruption was met with support than backlash or snickers. 

Any other teacher would have docked points for Murphy’s language, thankfully all Sprout did in response was chuckle. “I’ve grown bored of our old seating chart so I have taken the liberty of switching them up,” She drew her wand from her robes and gave it a quick flick, “the textbooks are charmed to show your names. Wherever your name may be, that will be your new seat for the next few weeks.” 

Clarke and Murphy shared a long groan, saluted one another before gathering their things and going their separate ways. Shouldering her way along the desks, Clarke trailed her eyes over the textbook covers until she found her name glowing among a group of textbooks at a station in the very front of the room. She watched as Murphy begrudgingly took his seat in between Bellamy and Raven, he drew his thumb cross his throat. 

Monty Green and Jasper Jordan filled the remaining two seats of the station with a loud crash. She had rarely seen one without the other, they were very similar to her and Murphy, but quadrupled energy and were often high on whatever blend they had concocted that week. 

“Clarke, what do you think of shrooms?” Jasper asked plainly. 

The blonde tried to hide her surprise the best she could. “Depends on what you want to use them for.”

“If I want the best high of my life, what do you recommend I mix them with?” 

Monty elbowed Jasper in the gut. “Dude, keep your voice down. Sprout trusts us enough to still think we’re growing valerian root and knotweed for our potion supply.” 

She drew her lip in between her teeth as she mulled over her options. “Can’t beat tradition, I’d say keep it simple and stick with marijuana as your base.” 

Jasper returned Monty’s elbow and jabbed him in the stomach. “I told you! Our clientele have never complained about our products, but Monty here feels like we should still switch it up.” 

Professor Sprout cast a silencing charm over the room. Once it was quiet, she went forward with introducing the lesson. They were to pick a Muggle plant and charm it into successfully adopting magical qualities over the course of the next few weeks. Traditional muggle plants were frail compared to those listed in potions recipes and the charming and spellwork would have to be done maliciously in order to not completely destroy it---they were also only allowed three Muggle plants, if they wrecked all of them, then they would fail the assignment. 

It was quickly designed that the three of them would charm a daffodil into a Flutterby bush. No doubt a reach, but Clarke was confident that her medical background, Monty being a structural genius, and Jasper’s natural talent for knowing what was what would work out in the end. 

* * *

* * *

Raven had never wanted to slam her head into a desk more. She didn’t know what was more annoying, Bellamy’s total incompetency or the fact that Murphy actually seemed to have a good grasp on their assignment. The boys had yet to talk to each other, leaving her to bridge the gap. A horrible decision really because Herbology was practically lost on her and she didn’t like Murphy. 

She kept watching Clarke, Monty, and Jasper out of the corner of her eye. The princess’s perfect posture looked out of place, not only in comparison to the relaxed slouches of Monty and Jasper, but among the whole class. Her and Murphy were the only Slytherins that had elected to take NEWT level Herbology and both of their backs could create a perfect ninety degree angle if Raven were to draw a line connecting them to the floor. 

“So, I think that charming an orchard into a Wiggentree would be hard, but the points that we would lose in execution, we could make up in flair.” 

Raven and Murphy both groaned at Bellamy’s suggestion. 

“That’s structurally impossible---”

“C’mon, Reyes, where’s that Ravenclaw drive. Besides, I think it’ll be fun, but if it’s okay with you lot, I’m not planning on getting points off.” Raven wanted to slap that smug smirk off of Murphy’s face.

She pulled Bellamy out of the room as fast as she could after Sprout adjourned the class. Now that she was out of the range of Murphy’s uncanny ability to annoy her, Raven could actually enjoy the way that the falling snow had become to pile up on top of the greenhouse. Everything seemed less loud, not quieter, but not as demanding. The twinge that had worsened in her knee over break, the growing number of raids, and increasingly frequent disappearances were stifled by the snow and for a moment, living on the brink of war didn’t seem quiet so loud. 

* * *

* * *

For once, Bellamy could say that he bested both Clarke and Hermione. Putting more emphasis on nonverbal spells, Flitwick had placed a glass flask at each seat filled with vinegar. They were supposed to turn it into wine by sheer willpower alone. 

Noverbal magic was difficult and he had by no means mastered it, but it was getting easier with every day. Though, he did have total control over that willpower part. Miller punched his shoulder when he noticed that Bellamy had successfully completed the assignment and pestered him for answers. 

In all honesty, Bellamy didn’t have or know the specifics to his approach. Flitwick had preached technique ever since first year and when it came to nonverbal magic, he emphasized envisioning the wand motion mentally. Maybe it was all the Classics that he had grown up that had given him his ability to paint vivid pictures in his mind. He tried his best not to question it too much; some things were best without trying to force meaningless reason onto them, in his experience, he found that those efforts made said things lose their meaning. 

At the end of class, Flitwick had awarded Gryffindor fifteen points on behalf of both him and Hermione being the only ones who had successfully completed the assignment. 

Clarke’s vinegar hadn’t fully turned red, rather looked like it was in a state of limbo, red tendrils of wine swirled within the clear liquid, growing as the mixture swirled within her flask, but never fully overcoming the vinegar base. Flitwick had passed by her seat several times, offering advice and encouragement---it wasn’t like one of his top students to fail like this. 

* * *

* * *

Quidditch practice had been brutal. They had started off with ten full pitch down and back sprints on a repeating interval of six seconds and fifty burpees. By the time Clarke got on her broom, her whole body hurt, but to top it all off, for every dropped pass they had to spiral dive to the ground for twenty push ups. The practice concentrated on offensive formations and counterattacks, the goal was to get the quaffle back as soon as possible so they didn’t have to retreat into full defensive positions. 

Ravenclaw, like Slytherin, didn’t have to account for any seeker mishaps like Gryffindor had to do for Potter on several occasions throughout the years, which had made them a consistently formidable opponent. It was going to be a tough match and while she loathed Malfoy, he had been above average seeker. Ptolemy Harper had been pulled up from their reserve roster as his replacement, he wasn’t awful, but he had been the reason they had lost to Gryffindor and barely beat Hufflepuff. 

A particularly painful collision with Blaise had left Clarke with what she was sure was a badly bruised hip. The crash had been his fault, having forgot to drop under her during their run through of the Porskoff Ploy. Clarke turned down Murphy’s offer to carry her stuff back to the castle. It didn’t hurt that bad, at least it didn’t when she walked at a tenth of their usual pace. Murphy had enough sense not to say anything about her very obvious limp. 

When they got back, Clarke told Murphy she would meet him back in the Common Room after stopping by the infirmary. 

Madam Pompfrey all but shoved her onto an empty bed upon noticing her limp. Pins of white hot pain coursed from her hip to the rest of her body, wedging themselves between her bones and joints. She had the feeling that her hip had gotten more than just some bruising from the crash. Leaning back against the pillows of her bed, Clarke closed her eyes and let out a low groan through her teeth. 

“What are you doing here, Princess?” 

Of fucking course Bellamy just had to be here. She didn’t want to open her eyes because she knew that his curls were probably falling in their usual unruly perfect waves and his skin would be free of sweat and grim, unlike hers. 

“Oi, Griffin!” When she didn’t respond, he nudged her leg, sending a shockwave of pain to explode in her hip. 

Clarke bit down her lip and fisted the bedsheet in her hand. “Fucking hell, Blake, can’t you take a bloody hint?”

“Ah, Mr. Blake, your timing is unexpected, but valuable nonetheless. I’m going to need your help resetting Ms. Griffin’s dislocated hip.” Madam Pomfrey exclaimed as she returned with a bottle of painkillers in hand. 

Fucking hell. 

Clarke opened her eyes and sat up. “Madam Pomfrey, with all due respect, I don’t feel comfortable having an untrained student assist you in resetting my hip.” 

“Don’t be silly, Clarke, I’ll be doing the resetting. Bellamy, here, will be the gentleman I know him to be and offer his hand for you to hold while I do so,” The older woman chuckled. 

Clarke tried to reason with her. “Why can’t you use magic? I’ve seen my mother do it before on far more complicated cases.” 

“I could, but that type of magic takes a bigger toll on the body than a realignment does. I’m assuming you want to play in the match on Saturday, don’t you, Ms. Griffin?” The look on Madam Pomfrey’s face gave no room for debate. 

Clarke relented, nodding. 

Bellamy held out his hand and she took it reluctantly. 

“I’ll go on three, alright?”

_One_ ; Clarke closed her eyes. 

_Two_ ; She tightened her grip on Bellamy’s hand. 

Nothing happened on three, because Madam Pomfrey never got there, having forcefully reset her hip on two. 

What had been pins were now full fledged lightning bolts, electrifying every nerve in her body. Clarke squeezed Bellamy’s hand so hard that she wouldn’t have been surprised if she had crushed his metacarpal bones. 

The pain medication came in two forms, two almond sized pills and a swig of one of Snape’s pain relieving potion---Clarke took both greedily, not taking the bottle from her lips until Madam Pomfrey yanked it back. 

“You’ll regret that soon, Ms. Griffin. That was Professor Snape’s strongest brew, which you just finished. Bellamy, I’ll dress your other hand and then would you mind helping Clarke into these pajamas?” 

Clarke giggled involuntarily at the way the tips of his eyes turned pink---the potion had already begun to set in. 

* * *

* * *

“Y-Yes, ma’am.” Bellamy spluttered. 

He followed Madam Pomfrey to another bed and held out his hand so that she could attend to it. Clarke’s death grip had left his left hand sore, but that was nothing compared to the aching of his first two knuckles on his right hand, which were no doubt busted. 

“Judging the swelling and bruising, you got into another fight, Mr.Blake.” 

“It wasn’t a fight _this_ time. Just some biogot that was badmouthing Miller and Bryan and had to be put in his place.”

“And your fist had to be the thing to do so?” 

“It’s nothing I haven’t done before,” Bellamy shrugged. 

Madam Pomfrey drew her wand and cast an Episkey charm, Bellamy felt a sharp pinch in his hand and then he watched the discoloration and swelling fade. 

“Bellamy, your love and loyalty are more than admirable, but I worry that---”

“Believe it or not, Madam, but I’ve already gotten this lecture today so if it’s all the same to you, I’d like to help Clarke and be on my way.” 

Clarke was laying on the bed, twiddling her thumbs when he got back, pulling a changing curtain behind him. A wheel gave off a loud squeak and she propped herself up on her elbows, a huge smile replaced her confusion when she saw him. 

“Yay, you’re back!” She whispered excitedly, clapping her hands together lightly. 

  
  


“Here, get changed.” He tossed the set of pajamas to her and wheeled the changing curtain between them. 

“I thought you were supposed to help me.” Clarke gave him a pointed look over the curtain and pulled her shirt over her head anyway. Bellamy didn’t see anything, just the top of her shoulders, but that was enough to set his face aflame. 

He turned around while he waited. “It’s your hip that’s hurting, you can change shirts without me.”

“You’re being a smartass,” She laughed, “I got the top on. I need help with the pants.” 

“Right, no, yeah, okay.” Bellamy pushed the changing curtain aside and knelt beside Clarke. He kept his gaze trained downward while he grabbed the pants from the bed; pulled them up the length of her calves. Clarke reached down and pulled them the rest of the way up until the pants settled loosely on her hips. 

Admittedly, he would have preferred to be helping Clarke out of her clothes rather than into them, but they still had a long way to go before either of them would be truly ready for that. 

“You thought I was going to leave?” He prompted, remembering out relieved she had been to see him. That was way out of character for Clarke, even if she was magically inebriated. 

“In my experience, everybody does at some point, so yeah, I thought you left.”

“Well, I didn’t and I’m not going to.” Bellamy whispered back. 

Clarke held out her hand, pinky outstretched, “Promise?” 

Without thinking, he reached out and wrapped his pinky around Clarke’s. What was the harm in a pinky promise? Odds were Clarke wasn’t going to remember this in the morning. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHAT DID YOU GUYS THINK OF EVERMORE????


	8. take upon the mantle, you must

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay so here i am, and to make up for my time away, this is a mega update. the longest chapter i have ever written. i spent a good portion of today finishing this when i should have been studying for my finals. 
> 
> but i’m really proud of this, i was able to tie together everything really nicely and even found myself writing really cool bits that i hadn’t even included in my outline:) 
> 
> so things to note for this chapter: 
> 
> Madi is introduced:))
> 
> For the purposes of my storyline (and forgetting the order in which stuff happened in the book), Ron is poisoned before Katie Bell is cursed. 
> 
> hope y’all enjoy!!!! your comments, love, and feedback have been outstanding!! really y’all, it means the world to me that y’all take time out of your day to read my stuff:))
> 
> pls continue to leave more!!!!

She was sitting at the dining room table at the manor, alone, and it felt like she was waiting for something, for someone. Then, one by one, the empty seats began to be filled as their occupants Apparated into them. Nott Sr, Avery, Jugson, Rosier, Rowle, the Malfoys, the Carrow twins, and so on until the table was full, except for the seat at the head of the table. Clarke swallowed as she realized where she was and who was going to fill that seat. 

Voldemort materialized in a cloud of black smoke at the head of the table and Clarke swore the temperature in the room dropped. She averted her gaze and stared at the wall behind Rosier’s head, knowing this had to be some sort of don’t speak unless spoken to situation. A conversation about the coming up raids and individuals that needed to be taken care of commenced, led by Bellatrix, who must have Apparated in with Voldemort.

The list was long, far longer than what Clarke had imagined it to be. It spanned from high up Ministry officials to unsuspecting Muggle parents of students at Hogwarts. Aurora Blake. Jacapo Sinclair. Hannah Green. She wanted to throw up.

“Griffin!” 

Clarke snapped to attention and forced herself to look at Bellatrix. “Yes?” 

“Your daughter goes to school with the children of these parents, correct?” 

Daughter? 

“Correct. Though she isn’t closely associated with them as they’re all either half-blood or Muggleborn.” She answered. 

Bellatrix pondered her response for a moment before consulting the Dark Lord. 

It was Voldemort who responded. “I admire her allegiance to our ideals, and I presume if she’s anything like you, Abigail, she would make a fine addition to our ranks, yes?”

Clarke swore her heart stopped. 

They thought she was her mother? 

She nodded shortly. 

Voldemort smiled, it was a sickening thing really, his teeth were slightly yellow, oddly shaped, and his splintered tongue shot in the gap between the top and bottom rows. “Excellent, our spy is looking over Draco and his mission at present, but I’m sure he would be more than willing to extend that guidance to Clarke.” 

The distinct whoosh of Apparition came from the kitchen, which Clarke had her back to so all she could do was brace herself for who was to join the meeting. “It would be my pleasure, my Lord.” 

That voice, Clarke knew that voice, her heart dropped to her stomach upon her realization that it was one she had become acquainted with over the years of attending his potions class in the Hogwarts’s dugeons. 

Severus Snape came and stood behind Voldemort’s chair. His cold beady black eyes met hers and the corners of his lips quirked upward in the smallest of smiles. For a moment, Clarke thought he saw through whatever magic that was allowing her to listen in on the meeting. 

A tugging sensation filled her chest and she left herself being pulled back into consciousness; the first thing she registered was someone screaming. 

“Clarke! Clarke!” 

Oh, she was the one screaming. 

In her frantic daze, her eyes came to focus on Madam Pomfrey hurrying over to her bedside. The older woman began peppering her with questions about her hip and if she was in any pain. Clarke brushed her by answering no to both and explaining that it was just a bad dream. 

Madam Pomfrey accepted her explanation and told her that she was free to go. Clarke awaited until the nurse retreated to the back room before pulling her sweatshirt over the infirmary issued pajamas. 

It was just past nine so she really should have headed back to the dormitory to get changed for classes seeing as she had already missed the first half of her first block. Clarke figured acknowledging that thought was good enough before setting off towards Dumbledore’s office.

-

Murphy had assumed that Clarke had spent the night in the infirmary after she didn’t come back to the Common Room last night. If he had been a morning person, he would have carved in enough time to pick her up before class, but he wasn’t and he hadn’t. 

He and Clarke didn’t have classes on Thursdays, the same went for the majority of students taking NEWT levels. Instead, most professors held office hours or review lectures in place of their normal classes, which were pretty well attended considering the hefty amounts of homework and frequent test dates that the students had to manage. 

In planning out the rest of their week, the pair had decided on McGonagall’s review lecture on the intricacies of Cross-Species Transfiguration, which wasn’t so much a review, but an introduction since their second class meeting for that week was tomorrow and they were to attempt to transfigure Flobberworms into Fritters. 

McGonagall had forbidden any quills that were self-writing as she believed them to be ‘barriers to properly understanding the material’. In short, Murphy had never moved his quill so fast because McGonagall was not one to go slow or repeat directions. It wasn’t until she had finally given them a break about half way through the lecture that Murphy noticed that Clarke still had yet to arrive. 

He paged through his notes---five pages in total---making sure that he had gotten all the important information, which he assumed was all of it, he would admit that he lacked Clarke’s talent for academic triage. Speaking of which, the blonde bumped into McGonagall, who had stepped out for a glass of water, on her way into the room, downed in striped pajamas and one of his old sweaters---when had she gotten that?

“Ms. Griffin, that’s an interesting choice of attire.” 

Clarke blushed, looking down. “Sorry, Professor, I spent the night in the infirmary after a bad crash at Quidditch practice---”

“Whatever the reason may be, you know the rules regarding our uniform policy and unfortunately, you are not meeting those standards presently. Ten points from Slytherin for willful ignorance of school policy.” 

“C’mon, it’s not her fault that Pomfrey let her sleep in.” Murphy called from his seat. 

McGongall turned her attention to him, allowing Clarke to slip past her. “You’ll be careful about interrupting, Mr. Murphy, or I’ll have to deduct more points from Slytherin house.” 

Murphy bit his lip, but nodded curtly, better him be accosted than Clarke. 

She sat down next to him in her usual seat, but didn’t pull out any parchment or quill, rather Clarke just sat, leaned back in her chair anxiously drumming her fingers on her leg. Murphy felt an odd sense of pressure to keep taking notes. 

Damn it, he thought, note taking usually fell to Clarke when they delegated weekly responsibilities. 

Still, he kept writing until he swore his hand was going to fall off, McGonagall thankfully cut the lecture ten minutes short after a fight broke out in the corridor. Not only did his hand ache, but he had to construe his body in an awkward angle so that he would write properly---in short being left-handed sucked. 

“Hey, so are you going to tell me what’s wrong or?” Murphy prompted as he gingerly massaged his hand. 

Clarke’s eyes flitted quickly across the room. “Yes, but not here.” She waited until everyone had cleared out of the room, before grabbing his wrist. Murphy felt like tell-tale feelings of Apparition come on, his body tugged inward on itself, smaller, smaller, and smaller until he stumbled into the owlery. 

“God, you gotta tell me when you’re going to that! Especially at school! I still don’t even know what weird magic you use to get a loophole to Apparate at school in the first place!” He exclaimed. 

“Dumbledore taught me the countercurse to the spell that prevents Apparition at school when I first got involved with him. It was a way to see and connect with my dad without raising suspicions.” 

“But you’ll teach Octavia Blake how to Apparate with it and not your best friend?” 

“I asked Dumbledore before I taught Octavia, plus Lincoln knows more about Apparition than I do. It just worked out.” 

“So, I’m assuming Dumbledore said no when you asked about teaching me then?” 

Her silence told Murphy all he needed to know. He kicked a pile of snow in frustration. “Nevermind Dumbledore’s horrible taste in character, what were you going to tell me?” 

“I had a dream last night, where I was at a Death Eater meeting. Voldemort was there.” Clarke said, chewing on her lip. 

“The hell?” He spluttered, “it was just a dream though right?” 

She shook her head. “I thought it was at first, but it was so real, Murphy, I was aware of everything that was happening, every person in that room. Fucking Voldemort called me Abigail. Dumbledore said a similar thing happened to Potter last year; Voldemort had him thinking that he was the snake that attacked Arthur Weasley.” 

“Okay, but what’s that got to do with you? Potter’s connected to Voldemort through his scar, we’ve known that for a while. How are you connected to Voldemort?”

“I dunno, but Potter’s vision of Arthur Wealsey being attacked turned out to be true. Who’s to say that this meeting didn’t actually happen?” 

“Even if it did, something else must have gone down to get you this spooked.” 

“Voldemort said something about recruiting me.”

Clarke, with the worst timing ever, actually started giggling, which soon turned into full on doubled-over laughing. Murphy could only stand there and brace himself for what she was about to say. 

Shit. 

“And, I think that Snape is a part of the plot to kill Dumbledore.” 

Double shit. 

Murphy started laughing too. 

-

Bellamy was well aware that he had elected to sleep through his professors review lectures and office hours when he woke up at ten thirty. In listening to the radio over break, he had listened to part of a lecture about the connection between sleep, dreams, and everyday shit. Apparently, it had something to do with his subconscious needing to sort things out—he could agree with that part. He was alone in the dormitory and was in no rush to meet up with everyone else to study having done extra homework yesterday. 

An exuberant twenty minute shower later, Bellamy dressed and made his way down to the Great Hall, where Raven, Miller, and Monty were hunched over and furiously scribbling on their respective pieces of parchment. 

“Look who finally decided to join us!” Miller chirped, taking a break to massage his hand. 

Bellamy’s eyes flitted over what his friend was working on. “Cross-Species Transfiguration? I thought we weren’t starting on that for a couple weeks!” 

Raven hummed in agreement. “We all did. Only Merlin knows why McGonagall decided to move the unit up.” 

Merlin, the one fucking day he let himself sleep in. With a groan, he pulled Monty’s spare copy of notes over to him and began copying it down for his own notes. He really wished he had a notebook from back home right now, it would make compiling all his coursework much easier. 

“Hey, uh, thanks for yesterday.” Miller whispered under his breath so that only Bellamy could hear. 

“No worries, you’ve done the same for me, but, dude, don’t you think we should tell Raven who said it? You know how she feels about lying.”

Miller shook off his suggestion. “It’s not lying unless she asks for specifics. She hasn’t and she won’t. It’s not worth it; besides, it’s not like Finn was the one that was trashing Bryan and I.” 

“Maybe not, but he just stood there and let the dicks he calls friends rag on you and Bryan. Doing nothing to help makes you just as complicit, regardless of whatever shit went down in the past.” 

I hate it when you’re right. I’ll bring it up after the match this weekend. Raven’s been training too hard to let Finn mess her up again.” 

Bellamy thought back to the first Finn fiasco. Raven had gotten the opportunity to study with the Beauxbaton Academy over the summer and with the Triwizard Tournament it had worked out that she would travel back to Hogwarts with them. Clarke had been involved, well, the one that Finn had gotten involved with while Raven was away. It had been a mess. Clarke and Finn had been sitting together during the welcome ceremony, in which Raven had returned with the Beauxbaton girls. He later learned from Raven that Clarke had been under the impression that she and Finn had broken up.

Still, the betrayal of her longest and closest friend had almost destroyed Raven. Bellamy had been weary of Finn ever since, especially since she had decided to continue the friendship after only icing him out for a couple months. He had wanted to curse him, but refrained after Raven insisted that he stay out of it. 

Out of his many talents, he had found that staying out of things wasn’t among them. 

-

Her stomach clenched with hunger, yearning for the food sat in front of her, but just thinking about eating was nauseating. She had spent the rest of the time before lunch copying down Murphy’s transfiguration notes, which was really dissecting them because he had written down practically everything that had come out of McGonagall’s mouth. It was tiresome, copying into on her own set of parchment then into the old green textbook they had snagged a while back. 

The green textbook was no doubt older than them, but had been the result of the grueling end-of-the-year exams. There was way too much information to memorize and not nearly enough time to do it, especially when they had to search through stacks of parchment. So, they had spent fourth year working on charming the textbook to retain all the lessons, lectures, and assignments that they had been and were to be assigned. 

Admittedly, a lot of the magic they had enchanted it with was very similar to that of Tom Riddle’s diary. After hearing whispers of its workings in and after second year, Clarke had begun researching ways to make one of her own. Originally, it had been an idea for Wells’s birthday present, but had evolved into the ultimate thesaurus three years later. Yes, a good share of the magic she and Murphy had used to improve it over the years had Dark roots, but who’s to say that something cannot become more than what it was meant to be? 

Her hand moved fast across the page, starting a new line just as its predecessor seeped into and disappeared from the page. 

A large stroke of ink blemished her neat lines as a hand darted out and snagged the book from her. Clarke groaned—that would take some serious charming to fix. 

“Yes, finally! I’ve been waiting for you to get this out. Remember? You said that you’d help me make one of my own.” Octavia whispered, leaning over the table. 

She had done that before everything else had gotten so chaotic. 

“Merlin, Octavia, I’m sorry that I forgot about that and the Apparition lessons. I just—”

The other girl held up her hand, “No worries, I saw the homework that Bellamy brought home over break. Sixth year’s no joke.”

“How are things with Lincoln?” 

At this, Octavia’s cheeks and ears flamed red, she tried to play it off. Clarke noted that like her brother, she was entirely unsuccessful in doing so. 

“He invited me to spend the spring holiday with him and his family.” The uncharacteristic, yet bashful smile that took over Octavia’s face surprised Clarke. 

“Octavia, that’s amazing!” Clarke exclaimed excitedly. 

“You mean that?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” 

Octavia then drew her bottom lip in between her teeth nervously. “I dunno, I mean, Lincoln is this great guy, Cedric’s best friend, and is highly lusted after by a majority of the girls at school. They’ve dedicated themselves to badgering me about him, ya know? Like how could Hogwarts’s biggest sex god possibly want me for something other than casual sex.” 

“O—” Clarke started, but she was immediately interrupted. 

“Clarke, it’s fine. The extra charms and hexes that you taught me have really made it easier to handle them.” 

There it was, the classic Blake dismissive defense mechanism. 

“I wasn’t going to say that you weren’t capable of handling this by yourself, but does Lincoln know? Yeah, he’s smart and everything, but he is a boy so he’s inherently predisposed to being oblivious.” 

Octavia taking particular interest in tracing the grain in the wood of the table told Clarke all she needed to know. She moved to get up from the table, but Octavia pulled her back down. Anger, frustration, and fear swirled in the depths of her green eyes. 

“Clarke, I told you. I don’t need help,” She ground out through gritted teeth. 

“I don’t know who told you that reaching out for help makes you weak, but whoever did is a half witted, ludicrous fool. Asking for help doesn’t make you weak, it makes you human. Unless, you’re secretly a centaur I’m going to need you to let me go before I charm your mouth shut and your ass to this table—got it?” Clarke shot back just as firmly. 

The pair held each other’s gaze for several moments, before Octavia yielded and let out of Clarke’s wrist. “Just please, don’t mess up his face.” 

Clarke nodded, before gathering her stuff and setting off to find Lincoln. 

-

Bellamy watched Clarke and Octavia’s exchange with feigned nonchalance. They balanced each other out well, he thought. House aside, they were quite different. Octavia was borderline lanky, already a few inches taller than Clarke despite the two year age gap, and was hottested headed person he knew. While Clarke’s shorter figure was toned, with muscle from years of Quidditch, and she abided by nothing other than pure logic and fact. 

Looking at them, he remembered that Octavia and Lincoln were. . .involved. Bellamy had heard whisperings about it around school, but had pushed them to the very back of his mind. The last thing he wanted to think about was his sister snogging a guy then was older than the both of them. After he had first found out about them from Clarke, Bellamy had asked around—even going to Finn as a last resort. 

Everything had checked out. Lincoln didn’t play Quidditch, anymore at least. Apparently, over the summer he was playing in a pick up match and fatally hit someone. It had been an accident and luckily, they had been able to Reinnervate him successfully, but Lincoln had since taken some vow of nonviolence. Bellamy didn’t really get that last part, but respected it nonetheless. 

He had written her a few letters and sent them with a morning post owl. Her responses were simple, answering his questions, asking a few of her own. ‘Are you and Clarke shagging?’ had been the main one over the last two weeks. 

Clarke left the table abruptly, leaving Octavia alone, who was hunched over, tracing a finger over the table. In other words, she was pissed. She was behind him and a few yards to his left; before he could talk himself out of it, Bellamy swung his legs around the bench and made his way over. 

“Something happen?” He prompted carefully as he slid in across from her. 

“Bell—” 

“Is it Clarke? Did she do something?” 

Octavia swatted his arm. “What? No, okay, she did something, but it was good. It was, I just have to get over myself and see that.” 

“O, that made no sense. Do I need to charm her hair off again?” 

“Bell, I’m fine, I swear,” Octavia insisted, “but what is going on with you two? The rumor mill has been pretty quiet since you said that you two fucked. What’s up with that?” 

“N-Nothing, I think, I dunno. Something almost happened a couple nights ago, but I think I fucked up any actual chance I had with her.”

Octavia hit him again. “Tell me you did not actually sleep with Gina Martin!”

“You literally just said that the rumor mill was quiet.” 

“Well, you’re a dumbass for believing that bullshit. There’s over a hundred teenagers all crammed together, that rumor mill never stops turning. Besides, I was waiting for you to mention something.” 

“I don’t exactly know how to work that into conversation and honestly, I think the only reason that something happened with Gina was because something didn’t happen with Clarke.”

“Merlin, Bellamy, I leave you alone for a month and you get into some fucked up shit. I mean I’m not surprised, but c’mon---that’s just sad,” Octavia chuckled. She reached across the table and tousled his hair. 

Bellamy swatted his sister’s hand away. “So, um, are you still going out with Lincoln?” 

“Y-Yeah, I am actually,” Octavia answered nervously, unsure of where the conversation was going to go. 

He could go back, pretend like he didn’t say anything. How much did he really want to know about his sister’s love life? 

“Are things going good? Is he treating you well?” 

She nodded. “Yes and yes. Why the sudden interest?”

“No reason, just wanted to check in. See if I had to beat anyone up on your behalf.” 

“I appreciate it, but you of all people should know that I can handle myself.”

Before Hogwarts, he and Octavia had bounced around from school to school. They were due to start number seven when Bellamy had gotten his letter, which had come a few days after an. . .incident. Some git had been them about their clothes and how they were shit. At the ripe age of eleven, Bellamy knew that his clothes were shit, but why did some asshole have to make a big deal out of it? 

The git had a couple friends, it had been four versus two. They had been losing, Bellamy in a chokehold and Octavia had been pinned to the ground in an arm bar. He remembered wishing that they would disappear and so they did. By that point, Bellamy had four things disappear. His alarm clock when it wouldn’t stop ringing, a book that Octavia had thrown at him, his mother’s phone when a creepy dude kept calling, and a beer bottle from the hands of that same boyfriend when Bellamy got the feeling he wanted to use it for more than just drinking. 

So the letter had come at just the right time because he was running out of excuses as to explain the consistent vanishing acts. But, right when his stopped, Octavia turned ten and unleashed literal hell upon her classmates at school. Once he started at Hogwarts, his mom had made the decision to send Octavia to a special boarding school in hopes that it would help her reign in her temper. 

It had the opposite effect.   
She only lasted a month before their mom pulled her and home schooled her for the rest of the year---hoping that Octavia’s “tendencies” would be quelled by the arrival of her own letter. Her prayers were answered the following July, the 24th to be exact.

Come September, the Blake siblings took to Platform 9 ¾ together, perhaps the last thing they would ever truly do together. 

-

Clarke found Lincoln by the Greenhouse, an annoying choice because it was a good trek from the Great Hall. Annoyingly enough, he had elected to stand outside. Taking a breath, Clarke wrapped her cloak around her tightly. 

“Bloody hell, Lincoln. It’s fucking freezing out here,” She hissed. 

The Hufflepuff was leaning against the castle wall with his eyes closed. He smiled hearing upon hearing Clarke. “Yes, but you’ll never find crisper air any other time of year. I try to come here as often as I can during the winter.” 

“Do you know that Octavia’s been harassed by the school for dating you?” Clarke wanted to get straight to the point. She wanted to spend as little time outside as possible. 

“It’s a small school, everyone gives everyone crap for dating anyone.” 

“Says a Hufflepuff who is beloved by pretty much everyone.”

“Your point?” Lincoln hummed, eyes still closed. 

“My point is that one that can be drawn from simple deductive reasoning. People don’t like Slytherins. They see green and think of the two Ds: Dark Magic and Deatheater.” 

“Again, I ask your point?”

“People like giving us shit. Some deserve it, but Octavia doesn’t. I’m not here to uphold the patriarchy by asking you to solve Octavia’s problems for her, but I am here to ask that you ask her about it. We both know that opening up isn’t her first instinct.”

Opening his eyes, Lincoln laughed. “You’re right about that, Clarke, and I’ll be sure to mention it to Octavia. Thank you for bringing it to my attention.”

He really looked at Clarke then. Lincoln was always intense, even with the extra spend she had spent with him over the last few months---Clarke still wasn’t used to it. She had suspicions that he was some sort of mindreader, not strong enough to be a Legilimenus, but maybe some sort of a magical empath. 

“You don’t deserve it either.” 

“What?” 

Lincoln continued. “You said that Octavia doesn’t deserve the shit she gets. You don’t either.” 

“That’s debatable, but thank you.” 

Clarke narrowed her eyes at Lincoln’s humming that followed her response. “Please, if you have more to say, go on.” 

“You speak so highly of your friends, but never give your assessment of yourself a second thought. I find it interesting.” 

“I don’t like talking about myself. Big deal,” She shrugged dismissively. 

Lincoln shook his head. “No, I don’t think that’s it. I think that you don't ever let the conversation focus on you. Not for too long anyway.” 

This is why Clarke was weary of Lincoln and spending too much time around him. Of course she respected him, but she didn’t like being around people that could pick her apart so easily; especially when she didn’t fully trust them. 

“Great talk, Lincoln. I’ll be sure to give your points some thought before our next philosophical discussion.” Clarke quickly walked back into the castle and for once, she didn’t care if Lincoln noticed that she was practically running away. Whatever, it didn’t matter, she had a Quidditch match to prepare for. 

She could go back to the Common Room, Murphy would probably be there and they could discuss Quidditch theory for Saturday, but out of the corner of her eye she caught a glimpse of a dark cloak and blonde hair. 

What the hell were Snape and Malfoy doing together? Sure, Draco was an biogoted ass, but he was another person that Clarke had grown up with and from her perspective, it never seemed like he genuinely reciprocated Snape’s weird infatuation with him. 

So against her better judgement, she followed them down the corridor. The pair stopped when they were sure they were alone and Clarke muttered the incantation for the Disillusionment charm under her breath. Leaning against the wall, she watched as skin took on the alabaster color of the corridor’s walls.

“They’re questioning you, Bellatrix and the Dark Lord, which means by extension, they’re questioning me. You know I’m not particularly fond of speculations, Mr. Malfoy,” Snape hissed. The older man advanced quickly, backing Malfoy into the wall. “You have the necklace, you know the incantation. Why haven’t you planted it yet?” 

Malfoy swallowed. “Weasley got a hold of the mead that you gave Slughorn. That was your failure not mine! I’ve waited because of you, because this has to work or he’ll go after my mom or someone else.”

Snape grinned a terrible smile. “How noble of you. But the Dark Lord could care less about such trivial matters. He personally selected you for this task so I suggest you get a move on before the Malfoy name is disgraced beyond repair.”

All Malfoy did was nod before he pushed Snape away from him. He waited until the professor was out of earshot and slowly walked over to the wall where Clarke was hidden. She caught the word, Muffliato, leave his lips—it was her turn to swallow nervously. 

He walked past Clarke, stopping a few feet in front of her hiding spot. “I know you’re there. And I know that you’re working with Dumbledore, but I want you to know that I’m doing my best to stall him. Y-You’ve got to do your part now because he’ll kill the both of us and everyone we care about if he finds out about this. I don’t want to die, but I have no idea how I’m going to live with myself if I complete this mission.” 

Malfoy didn’t look back as he walked away, but Clarke wished he did. She disenchanted herself, leaned against the wall, and pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes until she saw stars. 

What the fuck was she supposed to do now? 

-

Murphy struggled to tighten the last strap on his shoulder pads until a hand slapped his away from the strap and pulled it tight before tightening the rest. “God, what would you do without me?” Clarke chirped from behind him. 

“I’ve managed the last two days just fine actually. Since you know, you’ve been avoiding me since Thursday night.” 

“Just get my straps please. I’ll tell you after the match, okay?” 

He turned around and fought to keep his expression neutral while he nodded. Clarke hadn’t looked this tired since her stint of night terrors after her dad died so Murphy took the cue that he should shut the hell up and listen. Wordlessly, he went about fixing the straps on her gear. 

“What are you doing?” 

Murphy hadn’t realized that he had gone as far to begin to unravel the horrendously messy braid that Clarke had done. “C’mon, Griffin, where’s your house pride? We’ve got to be looking our best when we beat the shit out of Ravenclaw.” 

She chuckled, but let him finish redoing the braid. 

Their Quidditch uniforms were freshly pressed and hung on their respective hooks. Dark olive green vests lined with silver to go over their gear and a matching fleece layered cloak. He had to admit, as far as uniforms went, Slytherin bested all the other houses. 

A crash sounded and the pair whipped around to Bellamy, who had tripped into their broom rack. Murphy wrapped his arm around Clarke and made sure she was behind him, he didn’t care if it was subtle. “What do you want, Blake?” 

“Sorry, wrong changing room.” He said before backing out. 

Murphy moved to follow him, but Clarke’s fingers wrapping around his wrist stopped him. 

“Murphy, don’t.” 

“Why the hell not, Clarke? I don’t know about you, but since when do people mix up blue and green? Screw Raven, he obviously came here to mess with you before the match,” He insisted, pulling his hand away. 

“Who cares, I’d much rather have you beat Raven’s ass than his.” 

“God, quit it with the righteous bullshit—let me beat his ass!”

“Fine, if he hits you first—you have my permission to beat the shit out of him. How does that sound?” 

Murphy brought Clarke into a quick, lips quickly brushing the crown of her head. “Merlin, thank you! Now, let’s go beat some ass.” 

-

“Bell, what took you so long?” Raven snapped. 

“Sorry, I had a hard time getting out of the stands. Here’s the extra lubricate you asked for,” Bellamy answered quickly as Raven grabbed the bottle out of his hand. She greedily used it to dress and loosen up her knee brace. 

“Whatever, just help me this thing loosened up. The match starts in five minutes and there’s no way that bastard McGill is starting over me.” 

Raven had sent Ravenclaw's waterboy into the stands to get him ten minutes earlier. Her brace had locked up and she insisted that the actual lubricate helped more than the charm. Bellamy knelt down in front her, gently gripped her foot and began moving her leg back and forth while Raven finished adjusting it. 

It was supposed to be a pretty good match, both teams were strong and plenty of skill at all the positions. Clarke and Murphy were still the most fordiable pair of Chasers Bellamy had ever seen, it was like they could literally read each other’s minds. Bellamy wished he could write that off cheating, but Madam Hooch meticulously charmed the field with protective barriers so that no outside magic could enter. 

They were just that good. 

Raven had started out as a beater before her knee injury and now was positioned as a Chaser. It didn’t involve as much math as she would have liked, but she was still excellent.   
Bellamy wished warming up her leg and wished her good luck—Raven wasn’t one for fussy declarations. He maneuvered his way back up into the stands, thankfully, Miller had saved his spot in the front row of the Gryffindor student section. Everyone was still wearing their house colors, but today they collectively hoisted a blue and bronze banner above their heads. 

No one wanted Slytherin to win, while they had lost to Gryffindor the game had still been close and they had gone on to beat Hufflepuff pretty badly, the final score had been 250-80. If it hadn’t been for fucking Cormac and his monster-szied ego, Gryffindor would be in first place, ahead of Ravenclaw, but the fucking idiot had filled in for Ron, who had just been freshly posioned, and preceded to knock Harry unconscious by redirecting a blugger into his head. That had been a tough loss. 

Slytherin was in a precarious position nonetheless, even if they won, it would have to be by a margin greater than two hundred points in order to bump Gryffindor from the second slot and secure the other spot in the Quidditch final. 

Miller tossed him an extra blanket, which Bellamy wrapped around himself with gratitude. Bellamy turned his attention back to the field just in time as the teams began to take the field. Ravenclaw entered from the east end of the stadium, Slytherin from the west. 

Madam Hooch blew her whistle, signalling for the captains to join her in the center of the field. Urquhart jogged ahead of the Slytherin team to meet Raven. It was standard procedure for captains to shake hands before mounting their brooms. Even more than three hundred yards away, Bellamy could see the disdain on Raven’s face when she had to do so. 

Each team then mounted their brooms and kicked up into the air. Murphy took the liberty of tossing his broom up and back flipping on to it instead—earning him a sharp whistle of warning from Madam Hooch. Slytherin took on what looked to be the Hawkshead Attacking Formation with Clarke heading the team, Murphy and Urquhart flanked her on either side. Their seeker, Harper (not to be confused with Monty’s girlfriend), hovered above them. Bellamy had long since forgotten the name of the Slytherin keeper, but it looked like he had been replaced by a seventh year girl, whom Bellamy knew as Glass. 

For whatever reason, Crabbe and Goyle both weren’t playing today so Blaise Zanbini had been pushed back to cover one of the Beater positions. On his left was a surprisingly slight, yet wiry looking girl, Bellamy assumed she was to be the second Beater. 

He nudged Miller and Bryan to ask them if they knew who she was. 

“I think her name’s Madi Cassowary. She’s a second year, a friend of my cousins,” Bryan informed. 

“Oh man, Crabbe and Goyle really must’ve fucked up if they got replaced by a twelve year old,” Bellamy couldn’t help but laugh. Admittedly, Bellamy would’ve guessed that Madi was a third or fourth year. She definitely looked more mature than he did at twelve. 

Ravenclaw assumed a similar formation, but one that emphasized defense rather than offense. It made sense, Raven was an oddly patient person. She had her Beaters in front of her and the other two Chasers with their seeker, Charlotte, positioned way behind them. 

Madam Hooch blew one final whistle, before releasing the Bludgers and tossing the Quaffle up in the air. The Snitch followed shortly after. 

-

Madi was doing better than Clarke thought she would. She had badgered Urquhart at every practice to bump Crabbe and Goyle down to the reserves for the match, he had finally relented. Blaise had been easily convinced, Clarke guessed that he had too realized that they should have beaten Gryffindor. Madi had done well at tryouts, but Urquhart had decided to cut her for reasons that Clarke wasn’t privy to. 

Thankfully, the second year had lit up at the opportunity of being pulled up to play for the house. Clarke had run drills with her for most of yesterday and was happy to see that Madi had taken most of her advice. She was doing a good job of staying in line with Blaise and waiting for the Bludgers to come to her. 

On the offensive side of the field, her and Murphy were killing it. Ravenclaw’s defensive formation couldn’t handle both her and Murphy, and Urquhart, who normally trailed behind them for a counterattack. 

“Murphy! Urquhart!” Clarke yelled from her broom, “You lot feel like dancing?” 

Both boys nodded and assumed their positions for the proper execution of the Bitizen Ballet, the French National Team’s signature move. Murphy tossed the Quaffle to Clarke before flying behind her to catch up to Urquhart, who had already started his dash down the right flank. Clarke flew in a diagonal pattern, acting like she was going to make a run to score, when in actuality, Murphy was getting ready to do some of the dumbest shit of his life. They were far away, but Clarke caught Murphy making the courageous jump from his broom to Urquhart’s—she launched the Quaffle down the pitch, where Murphy caught it and threw it between the center hoop for ten points. 

The Slytherin student section went feral as their cheers overwhelmed the stadium. Clarke swooped low to catch Murphy’s broom, being sure to fly past the Gryffindor student section on her way down. And she may or may not have stuck her tongue out at Bellamy. 

Murphy got his broom back and remounted, even Urquhart was smiling, but he instructed them no more stupid shit for the rest of the match. They had still had to win. 

The game progressed in a similar fashion, Raven frantically kept trying to adjust to her and Murphy’s advances with no luck. Slytherin was on track to win by their needed margin! Harper was under specific instructions to distract Charlotte and not caught the snitch until they got enough points racked up. For a fleeting moment, Clarke let herself fully relish in their impending victory—Lincoln was right, she deserved to. 

Murphy had just called for another offensive attack when Blaise’s voice broke through the field. Clarke whipped around on her broom to see Madi falling off of her broom, her Beater’s bat lay long forgotten on the ground below. 

“Murphy! Tell Harper to find that damn snitch right now!” She ordered before zooming off in Madi’s direction. Luckily Blaise was as far gone as she thought, and had left his mark to dive down to catch her. 

She urged her broom to go faster, faster, faster, before swiftly jumping off when she reached Blaise, who had carefully set Madi on the ground. Her eyes were closed, face completely relaxed, and her chest wasn’t moving. 

“Blaise, what the fuck happened? I told you to watch her!” Clarke growled, producing her wand from her cloak.

“I-I was!” Blaise stammered, “I swear, Ravenclaw’s Beaters sent both Bludgers at her at once. I couldn’t stop both of them.”

Reinnervate, she thought desperately and a hot stream of red light hot from her wand into Madi’s chest. She had cast the reviving charm thrice before Harper finally caught the snitch. Madi finally groaned on the fourth time, relief flooded Clarke’s body. 

She frantically cast every healing charm her mother had ever taught her. 

“Madi, how do you feel?” 

The younger girl groaned again. “Like I just took a bludger to the head. D-Did we win?” 

Clarke refrained from hitting her for her annoying stubbornness. “No, we didn’t. I called for Harper to catch the snitch so I could get to you.” 

Madi sat up abruptly. “C’mon, Clarke, why? We were so close! I’m fine.”

Murphy then landed next to Clarke. “Madi, I’m going to need you to shut the hell up right now. You’re fine because of Clarke, because of the four Reinnervate charms she cast to get your heart to start beating again. Not to mention the additional healing charms to fix whatever intracranial bleed you developed.” 

“Thank you, but—” 

This time Clarke actually hit her, but only because she knew she was a goddamn good witch and that her charms had worked. “I don’t want to hear it, Madi. Now you’re coming with me to the Infirmary. You can come willingly or I will put you in a full Body-Bind curse and drag you there myself.” 

Begrudgingly, Madi carefully took Murphy’s hand up and began her trek to Madam Pomfrey. Barely a second passed before Urquhart was on her. 

“What the fuck was that, Griffin? You going and acting like the bloody captain lost us a catch at the Final!” 

“Excuse me?” Clarke scoffed, “I’m not going to apologize for prioritizing a child, a twelve year old’s life over some Quidditch match. Quick me off the team, whatever I don’t care.” She walked away before he could get another word in. 

After Murphy got Madi to the Infirmary, they met at the Common Room and changed before taking post in the corner booth at the Three Broomsticks. Madam Rosmerta must have heard what had transpired at the match because she wordlessly brought them a large pitcher of butterbeer at no cost. 

They were each on their third glass when Bellamy, Raven, and Co approached them. Clarke had been swirling her straw around her glass so Murphy had to nudge her shoulder to bring her to attention. Upon seeing Raven, Clarke’s grip on her glass tightened. 

“I would never tell Mulberry and Crow to do anything like that. No matter how much you guys were kicking our asses,” Raven said. 

Clarke nodded, but didn’t say anything. Neither did Murphy. 

“Would you guys, uh, want to join us?” Bellamy offered tentatively. Everyone looked at him with incredulous eyes. Yes, shit had gone down on the pitch, but did it really condone such forced interhouse camaraderie? 

“Depends, what do you guys know about Wizard’s speed-chess?” Clarke answered, scooting closer to Murphy in the booth. 

Bellamy, Raven, and Co all shook their heads so Clarke and Murphy conjured up two boards of Wizard’s chess, and began explaining the rules. Murphy had come across speed chess in Muggle London over the summer and had begun to work to incorporate the rules with its magical counterpart. 

A few minutes later, Raven and Murphy had started a game while Monty and Jasper watched attentively. Miller and Bryan had elected to pull up two chairs next to the booth. In the commotion, Bellamy had gotten pushed up against Clarke, so much so their sides were flush with one another. 

She waited for Bellamy to ask Raven to scoot over so that he could move, but he never did. Clarke found that she didn’t mind. They each began coaching Murphy and Raven respectively in their game of speed-chess. 

When Clarke felt his hand brush hers underneath the table, she bit her lip to keep from smiling, but moved her hand so it would be easier for him to intertwine their fingers together. His hand felt like she imagined it would, rough, calloused, but also comforting as he brushed his thumb absentmindedly over the top of her hand. Yet, throughout all of this, neither of them dared look at each other, knowing that it would force them to acknowledge the ocean like expanse between them. 

It had been a while since Clarke had contemplated jumping ship for someone, Bellamy was something with mooring to after all. Then the door to the pub was slammed open by Lee Jordan, sending a rift through the room. 

“Katie Bell’s been cursed! Potter came across her just now!” He announced. 

Malfoy had tried again. Clarke stopped breathing. 

Miller left the table and went to Lee. Katie Bell had gotten caught in the crossfire just as Weasley had, but this time it was her fault. She hadn’t told anyone about Malfoy’s plans. 

“Did Lee have anything more about what happened?” Bellamy inquired as Miller rejoined the group. 

“Yeah, I guess that Katie got hexed by a package that she taking to Dumbledore.” 

Clarke felt the blood in her veins turn to ice and her throat felt like it was full of cotton. 

“Did Jordan say what was in the package?” Clarke thought that it was Monty that asked that question, but she couldn’t be sure. Everything sounded muddled like she was listening from underwater. 

“An opal necklace? At least that’s what he thought it was, he didn’t get a good look at it before Hagrid took it away.” 

Shit. 

Fucking shit. 

Fucking bloody shit. 

Clarke didn’t have to ask what the necklace looked like, she already knew. It was made with individual opal pendants, of varying sizes, that had been strung together with pure, diamond encrusted silver. 

She knew it well because her mother had bought it from Borgin and Burkes over the summer. She knew it well because it was the very necklace that she used to bargain with Bellatrix Lestrange and Fenrir Greyback for information about their impending raid at the Sacred Sanctum ball over break. 

She wanted to puke, but wait—why wasn’t Bellamy cursing her out right now? Clarke remembered telling him about the necklace. 

Bellamy looked at her then, and for the first time, Clarke experienced the fond look that she witnessed him give his friends over the years. This look was why Bellamy Blake was worth mooring yourself to, because when he looked at you with that much certainty and warmth—you felt like you could do anything. 

It was then when Clarke realized why Bellamy hadn’t pulled any, if anything he had tightened his grip on her hand and moved even closer to her. 

He didn’t remember. He didn’t remember that she was the reason that one of his friends had just gotten bloody cursed. 

Shit. 

Fucking shit. 

Fucking bloody shit because she had to tell him, but how could she when he was looking at her like that?


End file.
